This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.
Elias Avalos felt like he was running in circles during his junior year of high school, losing motivation, and burning out. He juggled four AP classes and felt the pressure of being the child of Salvadoran immigrants.
“I’ve been dealing with feelings of burnout and unbelonging for a while,” the now 17-year-old senior says. “I think how I really ground myself when I feel like that is through skateboarding. It’s a hobby that dissociates from any work I have so that I can de-stress.”
He’s one of a growing number of Black and Latino boys who are left to manage their mental health on their own. In the 2026 Children Now report scorecard, 94% of the state’s youth ages 14-25 report mental health concerns in an average month, with stress and anxiety the most commonly reported concerns.
Listed on the California Health and Human Services Agency website, there are a number of crisis hotlines, mental health and wellness resources, and resources guides for youth. But families say they are finding it too difficult to access care for their teens because of repeated health insurance denials, difficulty navigating mental health services, and a lack of money. Advocates and parents are pushing for change.
When he’s not skateboarding, Elias works as an intern at the RYSE Youth Center in Richmond where he’s researching the factors influencing youth mental health. Working with a team of other young people, he says teens are struggling with neglect, poor coping skills, and a lack of access to youth-centered spaces.
“So what I learned is that here in Richmond, we don’t have access to a lot of support systems, which leads youth to go down different paths,” he says. “I know many people in my neighborhood that have to sleep on the streets, sell drugs to support their families and people that I know lost their lives. It’s a harsh reality that youth, in Richmond, really do face.”
Kelly Hardy, one of the lead authors of the Children Now report, says these numbers reflect that children’s mental health is in crisis. She said mental health resources need to be available where young people are, in schools and in the community.
The Oakland-based nonprofit organization supported a law that took effect in 2024, allowing minors age 12 and older to consent to their own mental health treatment or counseling. This year Children Now is backing Senate Bill 363, Hardy says, which would require health insurers to report the number of treatment denials or modifications. The goal is to make mental health care services, like counseling and therapy, more accessible to young people.
“We know that mental health has an impact on physical health and whether kids turn to substance abuse in order to manage mental health symptoms. Those are all the consequences that can come out of living a less healthy life,” she says. “We need to be responding with care, treatment, and services rather than with punishment.”
‘I didn’t want to be a burden’
Elias never learned to process his emotions at home; some spaces weren’t safe for him to open up, so he learned to keep things to himself. That’s part of why he’s never been to therapy. Like many young Latinos, he says, he was afraid that whatever is shared with a therapist will be later shared with parents.
“I didn’t want to be a burden to my family and friends with my problems because I didn’t want to add something extra,” he says about the time he was dealing with burnout. “Everyone is going through something. It’s just something I got to get out of myself.”
When his family asks about the internship, he keeps it surface-level — focusing on the values he’s gained rather than the harder realities he’s researching. “From my experience, I was raised to be more of an observer than a speaker,” he says.
Dr. David C. Turner III, assistant professor of Black Life and Racial Justice at Luskin School of Public Affairs at UCLA and senior adviser at the Alliance for Boys and Men of Color, says not enough is being done to address the systems in place that contribute to poor mental health outcomes for Black and Latino boys. He points to systemic racism, the over criminalization of Black children, and the education system as longstanding structural issues.
“The overcriminalization of young people in schools oftentimes forces them to disengage from education. It demonstrates to these young men that they don’t matter, their opinions don’t matter, how they learn doesn’t matter and it creates a very dehumanizing environment for them,” he says. “It’s one of the primary driving factors as to why these brothers don’t go on to college … because schooling has been a place of violence for them. When I say violence, I mean like having their spirit broken.”
Oftentimes, he says, children of color are left with added burdens to bear and little support systems to lean on. Part of his work involves advocating for legislation that implements mental health services in school systems. And he’s working to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline, a disciplinary practice that disproportionately pushes Black and Latino students out of school and into the criminal justice system.
Looking for ‘better ways’
Bryce Collins, a 16-year-old high school junior, is waging his own fight to protect the rights of Black and Latino youth in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Since October, he’s been working with Students Deserve, an organization working to end the school-to-prison pipeline. And he’s advocating for more spaces inside school that protect students’ mental health. The reason he’s joined this work, he says, is because too many Black youth like him are dealing with racism, stress, and anxiety — alone.
“Being a young Black male lets me know how I have to approach some of these areas … I can’t do what everybody else do,” he says. “I don’t got the privilege. I have to hold myself to a higher standard because that’s not how society views us typically.”
As the youngest of seven siblings, he says, his older brothers have helped him prepare for racial profiling. Around the age of 12, Bryce remembers beginning to notice non-Black people turning their heads and watching him when he entered different spaces. He knew it was because of his skin color. Lately, the pressures of being a young Black man, preparing for college, and family life have been adding to his stress.
Those pressures, he says, still sometimes force him to shut down.
“My goal is to find better ways to manage my mental health besides going unresponsive to people,” Bryce says. “Even though it’s what I have to do for my mental health’s sake. I feel like I should come up with better ways instead of not talking or not letting people know what’s going on in my life.”
