Can You Hear Me? Creates Safe Space for Mental Health in Music

Can You Hear Me? Is a nonprofit organization that creates a safe place for people to discuss mental health issues and get help. 

The group was started after Ashley Adler Coro, president and cofounder, lost her husband to suicide in 2004.  Since the incident, Coro and her mother have been determined to find a way to prevent what her husband went through. The family first attempted to work with the American Suicide Prevention and high schools in order to begin to raise awareness, but the idea was shot down. 

That wasn’t enough to discourage her, however. Prior to establishing CYHM? Coro had been a part of another nonprofit organization while touring with the Vans Warped Tour 2015. There she noticed people coming up to the organization and discussing their mental health concerns. At the same time, her mother was visiting her brother in a treatment facility for addiction. Her mother noticed he needed a place where he could be open and talk. Coro believed people needed a place to communicate about these types of issues, so Can You Hear Me? Became an idea, then a reality.

“It started out as a Facebook page; we had hundreds of kids messaging us and we stayed up just answering messages,” Coro told OUT FRONT. “It just became this resource for kids to be able to talk about their issues and not feel like they were a burden or what they had to say was wrong. We have a closed Facebook group where kids can give and get advice, peer-to-peer support. We want to create that awareness of the mental health struggle, LGBTQ issues, and make kids know that they are not alone and can talk to someone without feeling judged.”

CYHM? is currently touring with the Vans Warped Tour. The tour has helped this nonprofit in getting bands and other musical artists to join and share their story while working with the organization. A variety of musicians have shared their stories with CYHM?

“I think there is a lot of social anxiety because kids are growing up in the age of the internet; with that comes depression and feeling not good enough because there is this image that is portrayed on the internet of what you’re supposed to look like or how you’re supposed to act,” Coro explained. “Kids struggle to have social interaction face-to-face, and there is bullying, so mental health issues like anxiety and depression are a big deal because the internet has kind of made it so that when it comes to real life interaction, it is harder for kids.”

CYHM? have also raised money to donate to other non-profits in the names of deceased musicians Chris Cornell and Chester Bennington, and they’ve assisted musician’s families and artists who are struggling.

What started as a social forum to bring suffering teens together became a worldwide movement to prevent suicide and self-harm.