Social Media Settlement Funding

Fund IRL
Fund IRL is a coalition working to ensure any payouts from current social media lawsuits help fund programs and services that promote youth well-being and healthy development. 

Find tools, messaging, graphic templates, shareable resources and regular updates on their site and toolkit: fundIRL.org

Below are materials different states have created to show how afterschool supports youth mental health. You can use these to inform materials for your state and if you need help tailoring content or design, email us. 

NORTH CAROLINA: Meta Settlement Policy Brief

A brief that describes NC's framework for investing Meta settlement funds in afterschool and accessible youth mental health supports. Includes YRBS and summarizes key data about how afterschool protects youth mental health and what youth in mental health crises want from their communities.

TEXAS: OST CARES
One-pager about the statewide initiative led by TXPOST to promote positive youth mental health and build an out-of-school time intermediary infrastructure. Describes funding approach and how funds are used, identifies key mental health partners, highlights data about how youth benefit. 

ALASKA: Children’s Well-Being
Factsheet about different strategies afterschool and summer programs use to protect young people’s mental health, from the basics of a safe space with caring adults to the more intensive supports of dedicated staff to address students’ mental health. Includes data about reducing screen time and building relationships and recommendations for decisionmakers.

VERMONT: Addressing Youth Mental Health
Factsheet that presents afterschool as a statewide infrastructure with experience collaborating across sectors. Presents data and strategies for leveraging OST programs to support youth mental health and provide resources for programs to collaborate with schools, mental health agencies, and pediatricians. 

OKLAHOMA: Promoting Healthy Futures

One-pager that highlights facts about Oklahoma’s youth mental health crisis and describes OST as a fundamental setting for promoting kids’ mental and physical health. Describes afterschool as an intervention that provides developmental supports and includes call to action.

Organize focus groups or conduct surveys with youth and caregivers to gather data about the places and spaces that offer youth safe opportunities to engage with peers and mentors, barriers they face in their communities, and parent perceptions.

Example: Belonging in a Digital Age: Teens, Tech & Third Places

Findings from CA youth survey responses on social connection, loneliness, barriers to in-person interaction, and AI chatbot use. Findings from focus groups with parents and caregivers exploring family dynamics, safety perceptions, and the role of technology in teens’ social lives.

Engage youth in writing postcards for policymakers

Example to come

Collect signatures with a petition

Example to come

Sample Legislation Language
Sample language for the Youth Well-Being and Digital Accountability Act Fund that can be adapted by states to establish legislation that dedicates and distributes resources received from social media and related judgments to benefit youth mental health and support positive youth development.

MARYLAND HB 1278

Maryland Positive Youth Development Commission and Fund introduced in February 2026.

KENTUCKY HB 686

Kentucky Positive Youth Development Commission introduced in February 2026. See also the working draft of the proposed legislation.

Sample sign-on letter to attorney general

A template letter states can use to make the case for in-person, community-based programs and services to their attorney general.

Digital Ecosystems, Youth, and Adolescents

American Academy of Pediatrics’ 2026 Policy Statement on “Digital Ecosystems, Youth, and Adolescents” that crowding out digital media begins when we “crowd in other important activities” via extracurriculars and safe, prosocial third spaces. Ultimately, kids have no reason to leave their screens if the alternatives are underfunded.

What resources do young people use to cope with mental health crises?

To redress the harm that chronic social media use has on our young people, we must confront the reality that our youth don’t just need less screen time; they need more healthy social alternatives and places to go. In an analysis of over 87,600 anonymous crisis text line conversations, Common Good Labs found that opportunities for social connection, engagement in art, exercise, and access to outdoor spaces and nature were among the top resources young people use to cope with mental health crises.

Afterschool supports children’s wellbeing and healthy development

Afterschool Alliance national factsheet that presents youth mental health statistics, examples of state-level investments in afterschool and mental health, and the range of supports afterschool provides for young people’s mental wellbeing.