Johnny Reed

The son of a mother in healthcare and an entrepreneurial father, Johnny Reed was raised to love and lead. As a High School African American Literature Teacher on Chicago’s South Side, Johnny Reed witnessed how stress and ongoing trauma caused by systemic racism and educational inequities impacted his students and colleagues. As a result, he founded ProjectHEAL Inc. in 2017, responding to the need for school staff, students and families to discuss how trauma impacts student learning, teacher-wellbeing, retention, and to collectively identify culturally relevant coping mechanisms necessary to manage daily stress and cope through traumatic experiences. In five years, Reed established more than 62 partnerships with universities, community based organizations, public and charter schools in more than 16 states, reached 4,000+ education leaders through trauma-informed learning and impacted more than 200,000 students. Notably, Johnny Reed raised $1.6M over 7 years to fund trauma-informed learning and healing experiences for educational leaders while designing and implementing mental health education for K-12 students. At its peak in 2023, Johnny Reed’s persistent leadership drove ProjectHEAL’s impact to reach 78 partnerships across 32 states. Finally, in 2024 Reed evolved ProjectHEAL’s programming and digitized the experience, offering adults and students nationwide access to Trauma-Informed Learning, Healing-Centered Programming and Mental Health Education via an online platform or a personalized app. Now, as a rising Superintendent and Education Leadership Doctoral Candidate at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, Reed partners with School Districts, Superintendents and School Principals where he writes policy that makes Mental Health Education a promotional requirement for middle school students preparing for high school alongside policy that makes Mental Health Education a graduation requirement for high school students preparing for college and careers. Above all, Reed believes that requiring Mental Health Education for middle school promotion and high school graduation will combat the youth mental health crisis and ensure all students build early preventive skills, develop the resilience needed for academic and post-secondary success, and gain equitable access to essential knowledge that supports lifelong well-being.