California teenagers are reporting widespread mental health struggles, with young Black and Latino boys among those often left to cope with stress, anxiety and burnout without enough support, according to youth advocates and a new statewide report.
For Elias Avalos, the pressure became especially heavy during his junior year of high school. Now 17 and a senior, he remembers feeling exhausted and stuck while trying to manage four Advanced Placement classes and the expectations he felt as the son of Salvadoran immigrants.
“I’ve been dealing with feelings of burnout and unbelonging for a while,” Avalos said. When those feelings build, he turns to skateboarding. The hobby, he said, helps him separate from schoolwork and clear his mind.
His experience reflects a broader concern across California. In the 2026 Children Now report card, 94% of Californians ages 14 to 25 reported having mental health concerns in an average month. Stress and anxiety were the most common issues cited.
California Health and Human Services lists crisis hotlines, wellness tools and youth mental health resources on its website. But families and advocates say help remains difficult to obtain. They point to insurance denials, the complexity of navigating mental health systems and the cost of care as barriers that too often keep young people from treatment.
Avalos interns at the RYSE Youth Center in Richmond, where he is part of a youth research team studying what affects teen mental health. He said young people in his community are dealing with neglect, limited coping tools and too few places designed with youth in mind.
“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 said. Avalos said he knows people who have experienced homelessness, sold drugs to help their families or 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, said the findings show that young people’s mental health needs urgent attention. Services, she said, must be available in places where youth already spend time, including schools and community spaces.
Children Now, an Oakland-based nonprofit, supported a law that took effect in 2024 allowing minors 12 and older to consent to their own mental health treatment or counseling. This year, the organization is backing Senate Bill 363, which would require health insurers to report how often they deny or modify treatment requests. Supporters say the measure is intended to make therapy, counseling and other behavioral health services easier for young people to access.
Hardy said untreated mental health struggles can affect physical health and increase the risk that youth turn to substance use to manage symptoms. The response, she said, should be care and treatment rather than punishment.
Avalos said he never learned how to talk through difficult emotions at home. In some spaces, he did not feel safe opening up, so he learned to keep problems to himself. That is one reason, he said, he has never gone to therapy. Like many Latino youth, he worried that what he told a therapist might be shared with his 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 said. “Everyone is going through something. It’s just something I got to get out of myself.”
When relatives ask about his internship, Avalos said he keeps his answers general, focusing on the values he has gained rather than the painful realities he is researching. He said he was raised to observe more than to speak.
Dr. David C. Turner III, an assistant professor of Black life and racial justice at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs and a senior adviser at the Alliance for Boys and Men of Color, said the mental health struggles of Black and Latino boys cannot be separated from larger systems. He cited structural racism, the overcriminalization of Black children and long-standing problems in education as factors that contribute to poor outcomes.
Turner said harsh discipline and criminalization in schools can push young people away from education and leave them feeling devalued.
“It demonstrates to these young men that they don’t matter, their opinions don’t matter, how they learn doesn’t matter,” he said, adding that school can become a place where young people feel their spirit has been broken.
Turner said children of color are often expected to carry heavy burdens with few support systems. His work includes advocating for legislation that would expand mental health services in schools and efforts to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline, which disproportionately affects Black and Latino students.
In Los Angeles, 16-year-old Bryce Collins is trying to change conditions for students in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Collins, a high school junior, has worked since October with Students Deserve, an organization focused on ending the school-to-prison pipeline. He is also calling for more school-based spaces that support students’ mental health.
Collins said too many Black youth are dealing with racism, stress and anxiety on their own.
“Being a young Black male lets me know how I have to approach some of these areas,” he said. “I can’t do what everybody else do. I don’t got the privilege. I have to hold myself to a higher standard because that’s not how society views us typically.”
The youngest of seven siblings, Collins said his older brothers helped prepare him for the possibility of racial profiling. Around age 12, he began noticing people who were not Black watching him closely when he entered certain spaces. He believed it was because of his race.
More recently, Collins said, the pressures of being a young Black man, thinking about college and dealing with family responsibilities have added to his stress. Sometimes, he said, the weight of it causes him to shut down.
“My goal is to find better ways to manage my mental health besides going unresponsive to people,” Collins said. “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.”
Original source: CalMatters
