Fresh Takes: Stories of Youth Resilience and Family Well-Being
- 10 hours ago
- 10 min read
Summer 2026
Statewide Arts Contest Celebrates Youth Mental Health Expression
Abby Bennett was hospitalized at the age of 15 when she was struggling to cling onto life. During this period, she promised herself to fold 1,000 paper cranes, which are a symbol of peace, love, hope, and lifelong health. She says the act of folding and creating something beautiful from a simple object became a symbolic act that she fell in love with. During her time in the hospital, crafting origami became her lifeline.
“I made it to the next day because I kept folding.”
In 2024, Abby also learned of an expressive arts contest called Magnify Voices during her stay in inpatient care. The contest encouraged her to transform her complicated emotions into an immersive portrait of herself. She painted a watercolor piece of her heart composed of bandages, stitches, blossoming flowers, paper cranes, and words flowing through its veins. She became a finalist for the art contest.
Magnify Voices Expressive Art Contest is an annual arts celebration organized and hosted by the New Hampshire Children’s System of Care since 2019. According to CSoC, the event aims to “empower youth to convey their experience with mental health challenges through creative artwork.”
Concern over mental health has become a top challenge that young people find themselves navigating in today’s world. According to the Pew Research Center, nearly a third of U.S. teens ages 13–17 say anxiety and depression are extremely common among school peers. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that four in 10 high school students reported continuous feelings of loneliness, sadness, or hopelessness in 2023.
Magnify Voices has been facilitating an open, inclusive space for students (grades 5–12) to share their voice through art. This year, around 80 students from every corner of the Granite State entered the contest. Twelve students are honored as finalists, and members of the public cast votes for a people’s choice award. Winners are given an opportunity to discuss their creations during the contest’s formal ceremony, which was held this year on May 27 at the Kingswood Arts Center in Wolfeboro.
“This one program has blossomed into so many opportunities for these young people,” says Tricia Brannen, a committee member for the Magnify Voices event. Tricia is also the executive director of YouthWell NH, an organization founded in 2023 that strives to address mental health issues through funding initiatives, partnerships, and policy advocacy. She says she is inspired every year to see the hope young people give one another.
Magnify Voices also aims to reduce stigma surrounding mental health and encourage young people to take on advocacy roles, Tricia says. According to her, youth voices are crucial to creating policy change that promotes positive mental health, especially as need continues to increase for mental health services.
After Erin Murphy won the Magnify Voices People’s Choice Award in 2021, opportunities began to line up for mental health advocacy and speaking roles. She learned about the contest through a TV video teacher at Salem High School when she was 15 years old. As lifelong videographers, Erin and her cousin, Amy, set out to film a video for the contest and “make something bigger than ourselves,” Erin says. She submitted a short film titled “Dear Younger Me,” a compilation of four letters that she, Amy, and their friends and family members wrote and addressed to their younger selves. Erin and Amy used footage set in the White Mountains, the town of Windham, and at the beach for the film.
As a finalist, Erin had the opportunity to speak during her first ceremony. Different organizations then reached out to her once they noticed her talent for public speaking. She credits Magnify Voices for giving her the foundation to start her advocacy journey.
In the years since attending her first ceremony, Erin has opened up about her challenges with mental health. She has worked with groups such as NAMI NH to speak and present at events and conferences as part of the organization’s Next Gen Ambassador program. She has advocated on legislation supporting training for school staff in suicide prevention. Erin was even invited back to Magnify Voices as the keynote speaker of the 2026 ceremony.
“I really do feel like I've made a difference with all sorts of people,” Erin says. “I just did an event, and it was with older people. I think they said the average age was like 75. … There were a lot of people that came up after the fact and were like, ‘I've never heard somebody speak so openly about this.'"
Erin says most people care about mental health issues. However, some don’t realize that mental health challenges are more prevalent in the modern world compared to decades ago.
“We have a lot of addiction issues; we have a lot of people that are experiencing homelessness; we have high rates of unemployment,” Erin says. “A lot of these things can really be traced back, in my opinion, to a mental health issue systematically.”
Art is an effective education tool because it turns an invisible problem into a tangible snapshot of what one person is experiencing silently, Erin says. Abby Bennett has a similar belief. To her, creating and sharing art at an event like Magnify Voices can help “bring the hope out that has been hiding.”
“Art always knows what you need; whether it be a way to express yourself, a way to help you understand your emotions, or to give you a reason to stay,” Abby says. “Art is really powerful. And looking in on that world through others' art pieces, it has just been an incredible way to experience their message.”
In the years since holding onto hope during her stay in inpatient care, Abby has completed her mission of folding 1,000 cranes. She places them in random locations to spread her hope with those who may need it.
After Abby was a finalist in 2024, she was invited the following year to be the contest’s keynote speaker. Attending in person this time, she was struck by the artwork and the stories behind the brush strokes.
“Magnify Voices is really an amazing celebration,” Abby says. “Getting to be in a room filled with people who have gone through similar things and are willing to be open about it in different ways — it’s an amazing experience to be in that room. And even just submitting your art and have your art be a part of it, that is also just amazing.”
Anyone interested in looking at each submission from this year’s Magnify Voices contest can view them online here. A full livestream of this year's celebration can be viewed below.
If you or someone you know is experiencing hardship, help is available. NAMI NH provides a list of crisis and support hotlines, with many offering 24/7 support. To view that list, click here.
Explore More About Magnify Voices
Data Site Highlights Intersection of NH Economy and Child Well-Being
Lynn Davey, Ph.D., is a psychologist and strategic communications consultant who helps communicate complex social issues and advance well-being for children, families, and communities. She has served as research director for a child advocacy organization and worked at a think tank in Washington, D.C., that studies how framing shapes public understanding of social issues. Davey also conceived and developed the NH Child Well-Being Data Hub, a web-based interactive data visualization tool that shows how children develop within interconnected systems such as family, education, housing, childcare, public policy, and broader social forces.
Fresh Takes caught up with Lynn to discuss trends highlighted in the Child Well-Being Data Hub and the key takeaways from this year’s data.
How can users access the Data Hub and what function does it serve?
Anyone can go to nhchilddata.org. It allows people to move beyond anecdotes, access reliable data on child and family well-being throughout the state and look at long-term trends. We have many years of data now, and county-level trends as well. We want it to be a resource for community leaders, journalists, policymakers, researchers, and advocates who need credible data.
What overall trends are you seeing in this year’s data?
I think the clearest overall trend is that New Hampshire families are working hard, but rising costs are making it increasingly difficult for that work to translate into stability. There’s a disconnect between high employment and economic security. Many families who aren't technically defined as “poor” in terms of the poverty level are still struggling to afford the basics that kids need to thrive.
In terms of positive trends, the state has one of the highest insured rates of children in the country. Only about 3% are uninsured. Preventive dental rates are high, especially among school-aged children; that is important because oral health is connected to overall health. The state has led concerted efforts in developmental screenings and it's paid off clearly.
There are some emerging concerns. Access to mental and behavioral health care stands out. In the most recent data, a high percentage of parents who sought mental health care treatment for their children reported difficulty obtaining it. Three in four families indicate it was at least somewhat difficult to get care.
What does the data tell us about the connection between childcare access and family economic stability?
One of the clearest messages in the data is that childcare is a system under pressure. Childcare is not just a family issue; it is a workforce participation issue and a workforce stability issue. One in four low-income parents with young children reported having to quit a job, decline a job opportunity, or significantly change their employment because of childcare problems. Statewide, across all income levels, 10% of parents reported employment disruption related to childcare. That could be timing, accessibility, or affordability. Childcare costs are extraordinarily high –– statewide, it averages 35% of household income for families with two children.
The data reveals a troubling disconnect: childcare remains unaffordable for many families, while the educators who provide it earn very low wages. On average, it's often less than half the statewide average income. The data points to addressing childcare as key infrastructure that supports children, families, employers and the broader economy.
What trends are we seeing in vaccination coverage in NH and the US?
The vaccination coverage trends stood out, and they’re something we’re watching closely. Unfortunately, the CDC has not updated the infant and toddler coverage data in two years, so we're relying on the school-age vaccination data that has been updated. We have 12 years of the data available on the Data Hub.
Over the past decade, New Hampshire’s vaccination coverage rates have declined and fallen below the national average. Both the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics consider 95% vaccination coverage as the threshold needed for herd immunity, and both New Hampshire and the nation are now below that benchmark.
In addition to the decline in overall coverage, we’re also seeing increases in non-medical exemptions in recent years. This matters because vaccination isn’t just about individual protection –– it’s about community-level protection, especially for kids who are medically vulnerable. Maintaining strong vaccination coverage is one of the ways communities can protect their most vulnerable members.
Housing and access to healthy food have received a lot of press coverage, and solutions have been debated by policymakers. What does this year’s data tell us about those issues?
Affordability pressures are reshaping daily life for families. Housing costs are high. In every single county, annual rental prices for a two-bedroom unit have dramatically risen above the average annual income.
Food hardship follows a similar pattern. While relatively few households are reporting literal hunger, many families report difficulty affording the nutritious food they know their families need. So, the story the data tells is not necessarily one of extreme poverty so much as the inability to afford sufficient nutritious food. It’s a struggle today even for middle-income households. Many food-insecure children live in households whose income levels are above current state eligibility thresholds for federal nutrition programs such as SNAP and free or reduced-price school meals.
These trends reinforce that there's this growing gap between wages and the real cost of raising children. The housing data shows that; childcare data shows that; rising cost of food shows that. Those factors are the central theme of this year's data release.
Can you summarize the major trends that readers should take away from this year’s data?
Some trends are encouraging. New Hampshire has made major gains in reducing child poverty, increasing insurance coverage, and improving developmental screening. Those improvements demonstrate that when communities and policymakers invest in children and families, those investments can produce meaningful results.
At the same time, the data points to growing affordability pressures that have intensified since the pandemic. Housing, childcare, and food costs have risen at a pace that families can't keep up with. Hardship is increasingly affecting families across a broader swath of income levels.
One of the key insights from the NH Child Data Hub is that these challenges do not occur in isolation. Housing costs affect food budgets, childcare costs influence employment decisions, and strains in one area often create pressures in others. Looking across these interconnected systems helps us better understand both the challenges facing children and families and the kinds of solutions that can improve well-being over the long term.
Anyone interested in learning more about the latest child well-being data can go to the Data Hub here. Additional resources on the current state of childcare data and policy can be viewed below.