Riley Children’s Foundation Awarded 2026 Action Grant from Kicking The Stigma

Riley Children’s Foundation announced today it has been awarded a grant from Kicking The Stigma for the 2026 Action Grant cycle.

Over the next three years, this grant will support the development of two Learning Health Networks that will be made available for behavioral healthcare workers across the state. Learning Health Networks bring together patients, families, clinicians and researchers where they can access real-world data to influence how care is delivered based on evidence, lived experience and patient outcomes.

“I’m incredibly grateful to Kicking the Stigma and the Irsay family for this grant focused on quality improvement in behavioral health,” said Leslie Hulvershorn, MD, director of child and adolescent psychiatry at Riley Children’s Health and chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Indiana University School of Medicine. “The work this grant is funding will not only improve behavioral health care for children and adolescents in Indiana but will help shape care throughout the country. We’re excited to develop these learning health networks and for Indiana to play a national leadership role thanks to Kicking the Stigma support.”

Riley Children’s Foundation is responding to the youth mental health crisis through the most ambitious fundraising campaign in Riley Children’s Foundation history, Every Child Deserves Riley.

Kicking The Stigma opens the Community Action Grant application to the public in February of each year, with the goal of supporting local Indiana nonprofits working to improve mental health services within their community. To date the program has distributed $8.3 Million to more than 70 nonprofits in Indiana and beyond.

About Riley Children’s Foundation: Riley Children’s Foundation is Indiana’s preeminent nonprofit dedicated to funding children’s healthcare and the founding organization that opened Riley Hospital for Children in 1924. Today, Riley Children’s Foundation inspires our communities to invest in world-class pediatric research and care at Riley Children’s Health and Indiana University School of Medicine, and in programs like Camp Riley that support the well-being of kids and families. Riley Children’s recently launched their Every Child Deserves Riley $300 million comprehensive campaign, their most ambitious fundraising campaign to date. Learn more about Every Child Deserves Riley and how you can get involved here.

About Kicking The Stigma: Kicking The Stigma’s focus is two-fold: raising awareness about the prevalence of mental health disorders in our communities and raising and distributing funding to nonprofits and other organizations in Indiana and beyond. To date, Kicking The Stigma and the Irsay family have committed more than $33 Million to mental health awareness organizations and research.