Fifty-five percent of U.S. adults with mental health struggles aren’t getting the care they need. 

This is the statistic driving Project 55 - Educate. Equip. Empower, a 501c(3) non-profit, co-founded by Justin Goodman and Brendan Corr, that focuses on educating, equipping and empowering adults on how to be a mental health support within their communities. For Mental Health Awareness Month, I had the pleasure of discussing Project 55 with Mr. Goodman.

Danielle Lardeo: Thank you so much for your time today. I really want to start with how did Project 55 come about? 

Justin Goodman: When I was in high school, I was diagnosed with a rare degenerative spinal condition. Long story short, I was given two options: either an incredibly invasive surgery that would have stopped the progression of the disease or heavy painkillers. 

Ultimately, I was put on painkillers, which was about 25 years ago. Obviously, we know a lot more about painkillers today than we did back then, including how addictive they can be. For me, I was on significant amounts of painkillers and became dependent and addicted.

I went off to college, and I just wasn’t functioning well. I was still on my leadership team within the fraternity, but everything was kind of falling apart, and I was the last one to know. At one point, I had set out about 100 extra-strength Vicodin and had taken about 35 of them, attempting to take my life, when a couple fraternity brothers stepped in the room. A few days later, those two individuals staged an intervention. I listened to those individuals, went home, talked to [my parents], got help, detoxed and got clean. 

Fast forward, I’m in the insurance space and still dealing with mental health issues. Through that and other experiences, I began talking with others and being asked to speak at conferences on mental health. After my talks, people would approach me and say, “I’ve lost a loved one to suicide,” or “I have someone who’s really, really struggling, and I’m devastated.” Or I had other people who said, “We all know people, but I’ve never had the right words. What do I do? I don’t want to make it worse.”  

Then I had a few friends who said, “Well, Justin, you run an education company, you work with mental health experts. Why are you not doing something more about this?”

So, I reached out to a good buddy of mine, Brendan Corr. We had been on a mental health panel together. And I said, “Here’s what I want to do.”

But it was really from the speaking engagements where people just said, “Awareness is one thing, but I don’t have the words. I don’t think I’ll ever have the words.”

DL: What was your next step?

JG: I had Total CSR partner with me, and we worked to build mental health training. We wanted to make it absolutely free.  

DL: Thank you for sharing your experience. How do you think that the integration with Total CSR itself facilitates the training and availability?

JG: My business partner and brother asked how he could help. Our engineers built out a learning management system and then worked with me on the actual course building, the mechanics of it.

They said, “We have a bunch of customers and we have 80,000 users every year. Can we just then also offer it internally in the system as well?” Total CSR has it embedded in the system because it makes it an easier access point for all of our customers. But then you can just go to Project 55 and sign up there, too.

DL: That’s actually how I accessed it, despite having Total CSR through my agency, I went to Project 55 and accessed it that way. It’s impressive that you were able to use that technology that you had the groundwork that you had via Total CSR and apply it here. How did you decide what to include? 

JG: I worked with Ryan Waller, a mental health expert. I told him, “I’m going to play the person who doesn’t know anything. I’m going to give you all the reasons it won’t work. And you’re going to equip me to have the tools.” We went back and forth in an iterative process to make sure we covered all of this, redefining what support looked like.

One of the best ways you can support somebody when they have a difficult conversation with you or they’re struggling is simply to follow up. What happens for those people is they see, “Wait a second, they cared enough to check in a week later.” 

That’s the No. 1 lie that people with suicidal ideation tell themselves: “No one’s going to miss me if I’m gone. The world will be just fine without me.” You can eliminate that lie even if you say all the wrong things when you follow-up. You’ve eliminated that lie in someone’s head who’s really, really struggling. 

Those are the types of things we built in. Then we wanted to make it tactical because some of the other mental health trainings that exist out there, they talk about being in crisis but they don’t give the specific frameworks that most people find themselves in. We accounted for these 14 major life scenarios that people run into, and made everything contextual, and have that additional education in there. 
It doesn’t matter what the situation is, you’ll have the resources necessary, not just scripting. If someone needs a therapist with domestic violence expertise, we can get you to resources for that. 

DL: I know I personally enjoyed the specific scripts. They can be used in so many different situations, but you’re giving specific statements like, “Hey, I know you seem a little drained lately, do you have a moment to chat? Do you want to chat?” From someone who may be uncomfortable just reaching out that way, even just giving a simpler statement like that is really helpful. Having those multi-purpose scripts can really allow them to take more initiative in those conversations.

Who is the intended audience — managers, HR, or any personnel?

JG: It’s really anybody. The truth is, managers are the last to know, right? It’s going to be your coworker that sits with you at lunch every day or sees you or interacts with you. We think that everyone should get trained, to be able to support somebody as they’re going through a process like this.

Even if you don’t go through the training, our resource library is robust and will give you the ability to just click a link and bring something forward or send it to a friend. It can be very contextually specific.
You can tell your customers that they can all go through this training, too. We’ve had some people take us up on that, but I was surprised that we haven’t had more. If I was an agency hunter, which I used to be, I would have said to all of my construction clients, in an industry where mental health is a major issue, “Hey, it’s absolutely free. You can put your employees through it. You can add it to the list and it doesn’t cost you a nickel.” And it’s a value-add by the agency. 

DL: It never would have occurred to me to submit it as a resource or an option for our clients, I love that it’s available in that way. Do you have any other ideas or future plans for expanding the program or are you keeping it at the training and membership benefits?

JG: Last week, I was teaching a difficult conversation cohort. I’ve had high schools and a few colleges reach out about the curriculum, and I’ve seen a greater focus on mental health from different groups and demographics outside the workforce. 

There’s a desire to have a live component where we can continuously offer resources for people who don’t want to go through the training. 

DL: I really like the piece about the schools and adding some kind of curriculum geared more toward the schools, especially given the bullying epidemic and everything else that children today face.

And your name, Project 55, that’s referencing the adults with the mental health struggles?

JG: That are struggling and not receiving treatment.

DL: And how was that number determined?

JG: There was a study back in 2023 [that 55% of U.S. adults with mental health struggles aren’t getting the care they need], and we were very creative with the naming. And if we have to change our name, that would be great to have it be like Project 30.

DL: That’d be ideal, I’d love that.

To learn more about Project 55, access it for free via Project 55 - Educate. Equip. Empower. It’s also accessible from within Total CSR.