Meghan Markle and Prince Harry Heading to N.Y.C. to Host Summit on World Mental Health Day (Exclusive)

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will host their first in-person Archewell Foundation event on World Mental Health Day

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry will mark World Mental Health Day in New York City next week, PEOPLE exclusively reveals.

​​The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will be in N.Y.C. on Tuesday, Oct. 10 for their Archewell Foundation's first in-person event, providing a platform for parents navigating mental health challenges in today's digital age.

The Archewell Foundation will host 'The Archewell Foundation Parents’ Summit: Mental Wellness in a Digital Age' to give voice to families who are passionate about building a safer online world for children and teens, PEOPLE exclusively reveals. The conversation will explore how we as a community, both globally and locally, are creating positive change and supporting one another in developing solutions to empower families and uplift our collective mental well-being.

The summit will feature parents who have experienced tragic loss connected to their child’s social media use. Meghan and Harry have been working with the parents involved in next week's event behind the scenes, PEOPLE has learned.

"The families have been engaged with The Archewell Foundation for the past year, bolstering community and driving towards solutions," a spokesperson for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex tells PEOPLE. "Together, they are united in their mission to share personal experiences, data, and research to ensure the same does not happen to other families."

Prince Harry, 39, and Meghan, 42, will participate in the summit alongside Surgeon General Vivek Murthy to discuss the importance of this work and explore potential solutions, in a conversation moderated by Carson Daly, Board Member of Project Healthy Minds.

The event will take place on Tuesday, October 10 as part of Project Healthy Minds’ second annual World Mental Health Day Festival, the first and largest of its kind in the country. Project Healthy Minds is a Millennial and Gen Z-driven non-profit focused on tackling the growing mental health crisis, and a longtime partner of Meghan and Harry's Archewell Foundation.

Related: Meghan Markle and Prince Harry Visit Teens to Talk Social Media Pressures for Mental Health Awareness Month

Uplifting communities, building a better online world and restoring trust in information are the key pillars of the Archewell Foundation, which Prince Harry and Meghan launched in 2020. The Archewell Foundation operates with the core belief that mental health and collective wellbeing is paramount and approaches all philanthropic work through this lens.

The Archewell Foundation Parents’ Summit will Meghan and Harry's first trip to New York City following the Ms. Foundation Women of Vision Awards in May, where the Duchess of Sussex was honored. The following day, a spokesperson for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex said the couple and Meghan’s mother Doria Ragland were involved in a "near catastrophic car chase at the hands of a ring of highly aggressive paparazzi.”

Harry and Meghan have long made mental health a key tenant of their public work, and have supported World Mental Health Day in recent years. In 2020, the couple joined the Teenager Therapy podcast and spoke to five senior students at an Anaheim, California, high school about prioritizing mental health. The appearance came after the couple relocated to Meghan’s home state. following their step back from their royal roles in the U.K.

Related: Meghan Markle Discusses How Prince Harry Helped at Her 'Worst Point' in New Podcast Episode

On Oct. 11 last year — the day after World Mental Health Day — the Duchess of Sussex opened up on her podcast Archetypes about how Harry found her a referral to a mental health professional when she was at her "worst point."

"I mean, I think at my worst point, being finally connected to someone that, you know, my husband had found a referral for me to call. And I called this woman," Meghan said in conversation with activist and Bollywood star Deepika Padukone for an episode titled "The Decoding of Crazy."

"She didn't know I was even calling her. And she was checking out at the grocery store. I could hear the little beep, beep, and I was like, ‘Hi,’ and I'm introducing myself and that you can literally you're going, wait, sorry. I'm just. Who is this? Um, and saying I need help. And she could hear the dire state that I was in," Meghan recalled. "But I think it's for all of us to be really honest about what it is that you need and to not be afraid to make peace with that, to ask for it."

The Duchess of Sussex previously touched past struggles with her mental health when she and Prince Harry sat down with Oprah Winfrey for a CBS interview that aired in March 2021. Two months later, Prince Harry and Oprah’s mental health docuseries The Me You Can't See debuted on Apple TV+. The two teamed up to “lift the veil on the current state of mental health and well-being," a statement said.

In the series, King Charles’ son spoke about experiencing panic attacks, starting therapy and processing the death of his mother, Princess Diana. Harry also revealed that Meghan inspired him to seriously pursue therapy.

"It was meeting and being with Meghan, I knew that if I didn't do therapy and fix myself, that I was going to lose this woman who I could see spending the rest of my life with," he explained.

Mental health was a key theme throughout the Duke of Sussex’s memoir Spare, released in January.

Speaking with PEOPLE exclusively ahead of the book's release, Prince said says his one hope with releasing the text is to "turn my pain into purpose," adding, "If sharing my experience makes a positive difference in someone's life, well, I can't think of anything more rewarding than that!"

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As part of their advocacy against stigmas surrounding mental health help, Prince Harry and Meghan marked Mental Health Awareness Month in May by spending time with a youth group near their home in California. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex heard about the pressures young people face from teens aged 14 to 18 from AHA! Santa Barbara about how mental well-being is affected by societal pressures and social media in the digital age. 

Making the announcement on their Archewell Foundation site, Prince Harry and Meghan said they'd learned "firsthand about this generation's experiences with social media and societal pressures, and how it affects their mental well-being. The couple engaged with these amazing youth in candid conversation, working to find solutions together."

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex made multiple mental health-related engagements before stepping back from their royal roles, from a beachfront chat with OneWave, an Australian surf group dedicated to raising awareness for mental health, and visit to Waves for Change, an organization that supports local mentors providing mental health services to vulnerable young people living in under-resourced communities in South Africa.

If you or someone you know needs mental health help, text "STRENGTH" to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.

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