The Check-In, a component of the statewide "Turn To" campaign, helps users identify potential mental health and substance use challenges and provides customized, evidence-based resources based on users' responses to the self-screening tool. Intended audiences include Texas youth and young adults, parents, and community leaders.

The CHC is funded by the Texas Health and Human Services Commission to promote and evaluate the "Turn To" Check-In and its accompanying resources, with the goals:

• Promoting social connection as a predictor of physical and mental health and substance use
• Providing Texans with resources to manage trauma, stress, anxiety, and other mental health concerns in healthy ways
• Decreasing the effect of stigma on Texans' willingness to seek help for substance use disorder and other mental health concerns

Formative research with Texans revealed key strategic insights:

• Participants confirmed links between COVID-19, isolation, mental health challenges, and substance use
• While mental health is discussed more, many Texans identify with "having a tough couple of months" rather than "having a mental illness"
• Stigmatizing language is common, even among community leaders, when discussing substance use disorder (SUD)
• Community leaders are crucial mediators and validators of state health information

Formative research and creative testing shaped the campaign's voice and tone to be:

• Hopeful, trustworthy, supportive, and empowering — balancing the voice of a friend and therapist
• Compassionate — acknowledging mental health is hard to talk about
• Destigmatizing — using person-first, non-judgmental language, and focusing on how mental health challenges affect everyone
• Approachable — replacing unfamiliar or uncomfortable terms (e.g. substance use disorder, depression, or anxiety) with plain, approachable language