For over a decade, Vicki Abeles has been sounding the alarming bell on the urgent need to prioritize kids’ mental health. As our kids today face a growing mental health emergency, so many of us feel powerless to help, but Vicki’s work has shown the power of coming together around stories can inspire real change.

Fueled by a passion to bring childhood, schools, and society to a healthier place, Vicki is a former Wall Street attorney who turned to filmmaking when she noticed that children across the U.S. were struggling with a silent epidemic of school stress, including her own kids. A two-year investigation into America’s education system grew into the 2009 award-winning documentary Race to Nowhere, which uncovers ways our obsessive achievement culture undercuts children’s health, growth, and learning.

Vicki found herself in the spotlight, known by some as “the anti-tiger mother,” as the film ignited a grassroots movement bent on restoring student well-being, transforming education, and redefining success. Through a cutting-edge community distribution model, Race to Nowhere became one of the most watched documentaries ever produced, watched by millions of viewers around the globe. The film continues to resonate with diverse stakeholders today—students, teachers, parents, administrators, and health professionals—who use the film as a tool to spark dialogue and inspire community-driven action.

Vicki’s follow-up film, Beyond Measure, helped to answer a question posed by many she met: “What can we do?” and picks up where Race to Nowhere leaves off, offering a positive picture of what’s possible in education. Her New York Times best-selling book, Beyond Measure: Rescuing an Overscheduled, Overtested, Underestimated Generation, is a playbook for change that features examples of communities that have implemented positive changes in their homes and schools inspired by Vicki’s films.

Vicki’s currently in post-production on her latest film, Counted Out: Math in America, which shines a light on one of the primary roots of inequity in our data-driven twenty-first century.

Continuing to bring communities together around the power of stories, Vicki’s work as an Impact Producer for Chasing Childhood and High School 9-1-1 has helped to build new alliances around empowering kids to thrive. She was also an associate producer of the Sundance favorite Miss Representation (2011) and Plastic Man: The Artful Life of Jerry Ross Barrish (2014). Her own children now grown, Vicki hasn’t paused in her passionate crusade to protect children’s health, and sees a once-in-a-generation responsibility and opportunity to transform education post-pandemic as youth face a national mental health crisis. She remains committed to helping individuals and communities recognize their own power in making the changes we all need.