By Genoa Barrow | OBSERVER Senior Staff Writer

Add depression, isolation, anxiety, peer pressure and the pervasiveness of social media to all the other challenges of being young and Black in America and one doesn’t have to look far to explain the rise in suicide rates.

Suicide was the second leading cause of death among Californians age 10-25 years between 2018-2022. Youth ages 10-18 experienced an increase of more than 20% in suicide rates from 2019 to 2020. Help is being offered in the form of a newly launched campaign, Never a Bother. There is a youth-centered website, regular social media posts and a nightly telephone hotline.

Never a Bother is part of the Youth Suicide Prevention Media and Outreach Campaign (YSP), a partnership between the Department of Public Health and The Center at Sierra Health Foundation aimed at reducing suicide, suicide attempts and self-harm behavior for disproportionately impacted youth. The YSP campaign, a key component of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Master Plan for Kids’ Mental Health, awarded $16.3 million to 34 nonprofits across the state. Partners utilize evidence-based strategies to support youth mental health.

Locally, Liberty Towers Church received $500,000 to improve youth mental health for Black/African American youth in Placer and Sacramento counties by increasing knowledge and resources, and normalizing conversations about suicide prevention with peers, behavioral health professionals and others to reduce suicide, suicide attempts and self-harm behavior.

Another Sacramento-based organization, the Race and Gender Equity (RAGE) Project, received $499,881 to improve youth mental health for Black/African American youth in Sacramento County by facilitating youth connection to others, social understanding, purpose and belonging to reduce suicide, suicide attempts and self-harm behavior.

At Liberty Towers, youth leaders with Impact Sac host Bother Me WHENsday gatherings, where they discuss topics ranging from self-perception to maintaining positive mental wellness. RAGE’s hands-on programming also allows youth to take a leadership role and engages participants in peer-to-peer mentoring.

“With both organizations, the youth have a space to speak about mental health and engage in content creation about the topic, and partner with mentors and staff who can mirror and reflect back to them the struggles and challenges unique to the Black community,” says Juan Acosta, YSP program officer.

For the Never a Bother project, more than 400 youth, including an advisory board, shared their thoughts, feelings, and perspectives to co-create the campaign message and direction.

Real Talk

The OBSERVER recently sat down with Shailen Dawkins, a Los Angeles-based advisory board member.

“I’m 23 years old now, but I’ve been involved in mental health awareness and suicide prevention work ever since I was in high school, around 2016,” Dawkins says.

Dawkins has family members who have struggles with mental health issues.

When the COVID-19 pandemic “shut down the world” in 2020 he returned home for college. Even in isolation, he helped start a youth advisory board that worked with the Department of Mental Health.

“We had trainings for students surrounding suicide prevention language, suicide prevention and mental health,” he says.

When Dawkins heard about Never a Bother, it stood out from other, older projects.

“What really stuck out to me about this was they really wanted youth voices and especially youth voices from all different backgrounds,” he says. “I just thought that was super crucial because it really let me know that they were very concerned about having youth voices and youth representation, and knowing what youth wanted to see and hear.”

Dawkins is African American and Native American.

“Those are two cultures that historically there’s been taboo around mental health awareness and speaking about suicide and whatnot. For me growing up, it was always super important because those are very real struggles and very real issues that people go through. In order to eliminate taboo or at least decrease it, there has to be conversation and dialogue around mental health and suicide prevention.”

The Never a Bother project has given him a “perfect outlet,” Dawkins says.

“Even if it’s as small as checking in on somebody, or guiding them to a resource, which is the whole purpose of the Never a Bother campaign.”

Empowering youth around suicide prevention is critically important, Dawkins says.

“We don’t want to be talked to, we just want to be listened to.”

Generation Gap

Addressing suicide and overall mental health and well-being will help today’s generation move forward, Dawkins says. Conversation also can help older people understand what youth are going through and that their struggles are real.

“Even someone like my dad is looking at this campaign like, ‘Wow, I can’t imagine if I had something like this when I was younger, how that would have helped me and guided me toward a better mental health state or better mental well-being,’” Dawkins says.

“We’re going through the same things,” he continues. “They just look a little different with new inventions, technology, social media, and different circumstances, but at the root of it, it’s all the same struggles with mental health. It’s just about getting rid of that and really narrowing it down and realizing that mental health and suicide prevention are very important and should be at the forefront in terms of the landscape of issues.”

Dawkins looks forward to long-term involvement with the Never a Bother youth advisory board.

“I feel like it’s only the beginning,” he says. “I want to see this campaign help as many people as it can. I want everybody in California to at least be aware of it. I have no doubt in my mind that this campaign is really going to spread and reach people. I would love for especially minority groups to really harness this new tool, this new batch of resources and really use it and really spread the word about it.”

In underserved communities like African American communities, Latinex communities, Native communities—literally any community–we all have our own very unique struggles and issues that we deal with when it comes to mental health, but if you really look at it and break it down, it’s all really one in the same.

– Shailen Dawkins on generational, cultural mental health challenges

“Head Space: Exploring Black Men’s Mental Health” is an OBSERVER’s special series.This project is being reported with the support of the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism’s 2024 Ethnic Media Collaborative, Healing California. Senior Staff Writer Genoa Barrow and The OBSERVER are among the collaborative’s inaugural participants.