A journalist finds fresh ways to listen to young people voice their mental health challenges

On a hot July afternoon in the lobby of a Salvation Army youth shelter in Hollywood, I sat around a large conference table with 11 young men. Many of them slept, shower and ate there. Some were college students. Some were chasing a dream in entertainment. All were unhoused, and they were there to talk about depression, anxiety and how they cope.

I was there to host a mental health writing workshop as part of my 2024 California Health Equity Fellowship, which included a community engagement grant. Most importantly I was there to listen. 

“When I feel depression, I feel weighed down,” read the young man in the yellow 2022 Colombia soccer jersey. “I feel like there’s a dark cloud over me limiting myself; I feel restricted; I feel helpless; I feel like doing nothing; I feel like nothing matters; I feel like fuck the world; I feel like fuck everybody.”  

That young man would later agree to meet with me about what he wrote and shared. Over a few phone calls and a meeting in Griffith Park, Gyasi Mitchell would trust me with his story that became the first in three columns on California’s youth mental health crisis.

One month later, I sat in the lobby of the Boyle Heights Arts Conservatory with six young people. We were doing the same writing exercises.

“Anxiety feels like a bomb in my stomach and every second feels like a year and nothing makes it stop,” said the young woman who casually mentioned she hosts a radio show. “Anxiety tastes like bad coffee on an empty stomach. Anxiety feels like something watching me sleep.”

Her radio show, “Crisis Communicator,” is an example of what I was also looking for — young people creating their own space to talk about mental health in their own way. Kennia Camacho would later speak with media personality Ryan Seacrest about her work after my third column for Capital & Main was republished across Los Angeles.   

Reporting on mental health becomes more complicated when journalists stay in the realm of official reports and use the language of health care professionals. By necessity, such reports are broad and cover general trends, while the experience is individual and personal. To further complicate things, mental health discussions, even between friends, are often shrouded in shame and secrecy.

In 2023, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control released startling data that 57% of U.S. teen girls reported feeling persistently sad or hopeless in 2021, while 30% seriously considered attempting suicide. 

In California, suicide rates for kids ages 10-18 increased 20% between 2019 and 2020. Closer inspection reveals disparities, with particularly large increases among Black, Latino, LGBTQ youth and low-income and immigrant families. Researchers at University of California, Los Angeles found that “female adolescents were one-and-a-half times more likely than males to report experiencing serious psychological distress” and “adolescents born outside the U.S. were more likely to report serious psychological distress than U.S.-born adolescents (37.7% vs. 28.8%).”

I had also witnessed an increase in young people experiencing depression and anxiety as a professor at California State University, Northridge, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

I proposed a series of columns to report on youth mental health support in California. I wanted to explore what mental health support means among youth and in community — outside clinical language and reports, but also within the context of unprecedented investment.

I had already done reporting on California’s Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative, or CYBHI, a five-year, $4.7 billion realignment of existing resources, including multiple state health agencies, to better serve youth mental health needs. The initiative is the core of California’s “Master Plan for Kids’ Mental Health,” unveiled by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2022. 

I proposed a scaffolded approach — youth in their own words; a look at community responses to youth mental health support; and an examination of institutional support — that took me to Hollywood and Boyle Heights and conversations with groups and people all over California, including Sacramento, San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, the San Joaquin Valley, the Salinas Valley, the California High Desert and Shasta County. 

My second column looked at a small school district in Northern California that provided therapy to students through a new law that requires insurance companies to reimburse schools for the service.  

There were many challenges inherent in a topic that is protected by medical privacy. That includes navigating health care systems and institutions like federal, state and county agencies as well as schools and school districts. I also needed to get to where people can speak freely, which often meant going outside those institutions.

The mental health writing workshop was one way to do that. But my mentors and I agreed we didn’t want this to be a one-way transaction, or extractive approach. I would not mine people for trauma to write a story. I needed to acknowledge the emotional turmoil such discussion can create and pair that with professional support, if necessary, which was beyond my ability. I could also use the opportunity to help young people develop their writing by offering my guidance and input as a professional writer and writing instructor.

Drawing on my teaching and community work experience, we developed a series of workshops that offered young people professional writing guidance, including prompts, editing and the opportunity to publish, on the topic of mental health support. We also offered food, writing materials and my time.

We had debate and discussion about offering additional support, like small amounts of pre-paid gift cards. This was especially significant for unhoused youth with no steady income. 

The writing prompts were structured to create a written statement on mental health. If they were interested, it could be developed further into an essay or even turned into a self-published ‘zine. 

By partnering with organizations and adults that trusted me, the young people were willing to write and talk. But what we didn’t expect was adult interest in writing workshops on mental health. 

For two of the three workshops in Boyle Heights, we had to turn away parents and adult residents who wanted to participate. The interest was enough that I spoke with program managers about creating adult workshops. 

A city representative reached out requesting workshops in Los Angeles’ San Gabriel Valley. I had to remind those adults that I was not a mental health care professional.

The interest speaks to a need beyond my reporting and beyond my professional ability.

This project was always about listening: meeting with professionals, reading published research that had not been highlighted in other media. And most importantly, listening to young people and appreciating that trust to share accurately and appropriately their concerns, feelings and needs.