Selena Gomez Talks Mental Health at White House Sponsored Event

Selena Gomez has teamed up with President Biden and his administration to put a spotlight on mental health ... with the help of youth who are also speaking up on the issue.

The singer was on hand Wednesday at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. to deliver remarks and help lead a conversation with the newly formed Mental Health Youth Action Forum ... which was put together courtesy of MTV and Rare Beauty's Rare Impact Fund.

Selena was intro'd by Dr. Jill Biden, and then outlined why she was doing this ... and why it was important to empower people to discuss mental health more openly.

The whole idea of this is to end the stigma surrounding mental health, while also propping up young leaders who work in the field ... via advocacy, entrepreneurship or both. It appears some of those folks were actually sitting around as SG spoke -- it was a packed house.

Some of the things Selena and co. are hoping to achieve with this new forum include changing labor laws to be more sensitive to mental health needs -- including getting extra PTO specifically for mental health, which would be treated almost like sick days.