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NAMI joins Youth AI Safety Institute as a standards steering partner

The nation's largest grassroots mental health organization will bring the perspective of families, peers, and communities to the Institute's first AI safety standards.
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By Kasey Flemer

Standards Program Director, Youth AI Safety Institute

 

The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) is joining the Youth AI Safety Institute as a standards steering partner, alongside Crisis Text Line. NAMI will help shape our standards for how AI products should respond to young people facing mental health crises including suicidal ideation and psychosis and when and how AI should facilitate connection with a trusted adult.

 

NAMI’s expertise in lived experience  will help our standards reflect the wider safety net around a young person in crisis, including family members, peers, and community support.

 

“NAMI knows how to build connections and care in communities. We want their insight on how AI products can steer young people who need support toward real help,” said Robbie Torney, the Institute’s Head of AI & Digital Assessments.

 

Our first set of standards focuses on "red-line" severe harms, including the mental health crises NAMI will help address. We are developing them with guidance from steering partners and input from the field, and will publish the standards and their methodology next year.

 

“When a young person turns to AI in a moment of distress, the response they get can have real consequences,” said Dr. Christine M. Crawford, NAMI’s chief medical officer. “Young people deserve tools that prioritize their safety and help connect them with people who can provide the right kind of mental health support and care. Young people and families with lived experience can help ensure these standards reflect the support people need in their most vulnerable moments.”

 

This partnership builds on NAMI’s longstanding commitment to amplifying the voices of people affected by mental illness. As the nation’s largest grassroots mental health organization, NAMI centers lived experience perspectives across its advocacy, education, support, and public awareness work—including its ongoing efforts around AI and mental health. NAMI is working with Dr. John Torous and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center to develop independent benchmarks for how AI tools respond to mental health questions, integrating clinical evidence and lived experience to advance safety and accountability in AI.