By Stephen Magagnini | OBSERVER Editor In Chief

When Kristee Haggins was a teenager, the pressure of life, school and racism nearly drove her to the breaking point. She attempted suicide and almost joined the sad ranks of Black youth who had hit their breaking point.

Those numbers are on the rise. Black youth ages 10-24 have experienced a nearly 37% increase in suicide from 2018-2021, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Suicide was the third leading cause of death among youth ages 10-24 in Sacramento County from 2010-2022. The OBSERVER analyzed county data and found that Black youth made up roughly 21% of all suicides in that age group from 2019-2024. While overall suicide rates are declining, they are increasing among Black youth, particularly among young Black men, who die by suicide at more than four times the rate of Black women.

Suicide attempts also are more frequent among youth. According to Sacramento County Public Health data for November 2024 though January, 60 youth were admitted to an emergency room for attempted suicide and more than 600 visited the emergency room because of suicidal thoughts.

Haggins, who attempted suicide a second time in college, had an epiphany: she would become an African-centered psychologist who helped other Black youth cope with depression before it was too late. In her 35-year-career as a counselor, educator, writer and mentor, Haggins, 57, has helped thousands of Black youths heal from mental illness and get the help they need.

Haggins is featured prominently on billboards across Sacramento as part of a campaign combating the stigma of mental health. Her message on the billboards: “We need to take time to listen — it’s crucial for healing. Be seen, be heard, ask for help.”

She now serves as executive director of Safe Black Space, a Sacramento-based nonprofit she founded to help Black people “heal and thrive in the face of racism and anti-Blackness … for over three decades, I have been committed to the healing, empowerment, and liberation of Black people — mind, body, spirit and community.” She also serves as president of the Greater Sacramento Chapter of the Association of Black Psychologists.

A nationally recognized voice on Black mental health, she gave expert testimony to the California Department of Justice and the California Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans and its potential impact on their mental health. She shared strategies for teens at risk with The OBSERVER in the following Q&A, edited for space and clarity.

Haggins grew up in Altadena, where she still has family. “During the recent fires, one of my brothers was on the roof of our family home, watering it down,” she said. “A couple of cousins and good friends lost their homes, but my family did not.”

Tell us about how you grew up.

I was the unexpected surprise in my parents’ life — I have brothers that are 8, 10 and 12 years older than me. Both my parents came to Los Angeles from the South during what is now called the Great Migration, my father from Long Beach, Mississippi, and my mom from Texas. She was an X-ray radiology technician, and he was one of the first Black managers for Von’s supermarket chain. They really pushed education as kind of a way out. They supported me to go to USC and took out bonds and loans against their house to help pay my tuition.

How did you handle growing up as Black teenage girl in Los Angeles?

I was very shy as a child. I was born two months premature and my vision was very, very poor. In second grade they discovered just how poor it was: I couldn’t read the big “E” on the eye chart. It was just one big blob. When my second-grade teacher noticed I couldn’t make out the words on the blackboard, I got glasses and said “Oh, my God, this is what the world looks like, what my mom looks like.”

My oldest brother is a Republican who was consumed by whiteness, white superiority and was always dating white women and has married three white women. My middle brother was very pro-Black. Another brother got into criminal activity, sold drugs and spent time in prison. I became “the good kid.” My brothers went to public schools; I went to Christian schools. I struggled quite a bit with my identity — as many students and young people still do today — around their Blackness and what that means. For example, how Black am I, or, do I want to be white, or, how does the way I speak reflect my Blackness or not? What does my skin tone say about me? One of my brothers used to tease me like, “Why do you talk so white?” I got challenged even in my own home.

All the messaging around what is right or what is perceived as beautiful is very conflicting. Come high school I began to stretch my wings and stopped being the ‘good girl,’ I was sneaking out, dating boys and every now and then getting high. Sports was a positive outlet year-round in middle and high school — volleyball, basketball, softball. I ended up student athlete of the year in high school. That gave me a sense of purpose. 

Attending predominantly white, Christian schools and later USC, did you face discrimination?

I didn’t experience blatant, overt racism, wasn’t called the n-word. It was more subtle; when I and a white student broke the rules on the playground, I got sent to the principal’s office and he got to go back to the classroom. I was one of four Black students in my high school class out of about 100. There were microaggressions, people wanting to touch my hair, asking why does my hair look this way? I remember wanting to stay under an umbrella wearing long sleeves one 4th of July because I didn’t want to get darker.
I was the only little speck of Blackness in the sea of whiteness throughout K-12. Even at USC, I remember a white student in the dorms clutching her purse and moving away from me in the elevator.

My parents were very invested in making sure that we stayed connected to other Black family members and community members and had me participate in Jack and Jill of America, an African American leadership program.

At USC, I began to connect with what it means to be Black. I got involved in the Black Student Union, joined a Black sorority and became president. One night, when the Alpha Phi Alpha’s Black pledges were walking down fraternity row, white fraternity members got out water hoses and started spraying them. I thought, “This is not the ’60s, what’s happening?”

Please take us on your mental health journey.

I really struggled as a teen with depression. When I was 16, I attempted suicide with some pills. It was related to disappointing my mom, who was a perfectionist. I didn’t know how else to cope with challenges or critical life events. I started dating a guy, smoking and drinking a little bit and my mom found us together in his house and said, “You know you shouldn’t be sleeping with somebody.” At my Christian school, they said if you’re promiscuous you’re going to hell. I felt like too much to handle.

My mom was a very loving person who struggled with her own depression. She would just shut down. She wouldn’t talk, she wouldn’t cook, she would just retreat to her bedroom for days at a time. I thought, “Oh, my God, I’ve lost my mom” and didn’t know who I could talk to. My older brother Marion took me out to eat and just loved on me and told me mom could be a piece of work and understood how it could be hard to live with her.

I dove back into school and sports, knowing before long I would be able to make my own decisions.

My freshman year at USC, I tried suicide again at 17. I contracted an STD and thought this was the end of the world, no one will ever want me again, what if I can never have children? And my mom had a lot to say about it. I again tried to OD on pills. I started hallucinating. I was seeing, like, bugs on the floor. My roommate took me to get my stomach pumped. After that, I got into some therapy.

How were you able to pull out of this depression and get back on track?

Part of why I became a psychologist, part of why I do Safe Black Space, is because when I was a struggling teenage girl I didn’t know where to go, who I could talk to. I didn’t realize USC had a counseling center, psychological services on campus that I could have used. I don’t think there were any Black therapists at the time. I realized I don’t want anybody to ever have to go through this on their own. I want to be a resource for people who may be at risk of suicide or dealing with mental health challenges and don’t know where to go or who to talk to. I decided to major in psychology.

I realized how much I enjoyed trying to understand the human mind, behaviors and ways to help and influence people like me. And so here I am.

How did you find your way from USC to Sacramento?

I got a wonderful opportunity to go to the Ohio State University to study counseling and get a Ph.D. I got a minority fellowship for my first year, which meant all my tuition was paid and I got a stipend so I could live and have my own place. My last three years I became a teaching assistant and completed my doctorate in counseling rather than becoming a clinical psychologist working with people who have more severe mental illness, such as someone who may have schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, or people who are on the spectrum of more serious mental illness.

Counseling psychologists tend to work with people who are more in the “normal” range, maybe dealing with life circumstances, career exploration, relationship challenges, and I thought, “This is what I want.”

You need to put in 1,500 hours of clinical “practicum” [practical] training on the way to your doctorate, and another 1,500 full-time hours post-doc to become a licensed psychologist. I did my internship at Georgia State University’s counseling center in Atlanta. When an outside evaluator from UC Davis came to evaluate Georgia State as part of American Psychological Association accreditation, he offered me a job at the UC Davis counseling center. So I moved back to California in 1994, worked at UCD for 18 years and became director of training. I also taught the psychology of the African American experience as an adjunct professor, which I loved.

Please tell us about your journey counseling young people.

While at UC Davis, I offered a brothers-and-sisters group with one of our other psychologists and then when he left, I led Sister to Sister, a version of what I now do with Safe Black Space, but it was on campus. I coordinated the community advising network designed to ensure that students from more marginalized communities who may not want to come to the counseling center — who had stigma around seeking services — that they would still maybe go and see a master’s-level therapist or seek help at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual (LGBTQIA) Resource Center; or maybe they go and talk with someone who was in Asian American studies or at the Cross Cultural Center. We strategically had therapists that were in these community-based, diverse areas so that they could do an initial assessment, see what was up, and then if the person really did need therapy to send them to the counseling center or continue to support them.

In 2012 the counseling center was merged with the health center and there was a shift to a medical model with a lot of expectations and requirements not aligned with community needs. That was part of why I left.

As you evolved into more community-centered work, about how many Black teens have you counseled and impacted over the years?

Three to five thousand young people, including those I counseled during graduate school, UC Davis, Elk Grove Unified School District, my work with Safe Black Space and African drum circles. Finding ways for young people to express themselves and engage in unique healing forms has been important.

One of my colleagues says, “Not all therapy is healing, and not all healing is therapeutic.” There are some ways people can be harmed when they seek therapy if the therapist is not the right fit or if the process or practice that the provider uses is misaligned with the person. Not all healing has to come from sitting in a therapy room. It can come from other opportunities to engage with other community, with peers, with artistic forms, with spoken word, with exercise. Some of what I have done more recently has not been individual therapy. I am now working more at the community level.

Tell us about your own daughters and their journeys.

My oldest daughter, who’s 25, actually just started physician’s assistant school in Nashville. My youngest daughter, 23, is still exploring what she wants to do with her life, living in Houston and working as a server and a bartender and kind of trying to run her eyelash extension business and sewing and doing a number of different things.

We got 35 Black teens to answer our mental health survey. More than half said the pressure from teachers and parents to succeed or their own high expectations for success caused their mental health to suffer. And 25% said racism or difficulties at home were a main cause of stress. One said, “School has been causing me the most stress. I feel like I’m always thinking about school and it’s affecting my sleep and personality.” Another one said, “The pressure of being one of the only Black students and keeping up academically.” Another commented, “My family is not being supportive and have very high expectations for me.”

Family dynamics, academic pressure, racism, and oppression are still very relevant for many of our teens and youth today. I would also add the impact of the pandemic, which affected their development, increased feelings of isolation and a lack of social interaction, about being 17 years old and not being able to hang out with your boys or girls and just go play basketball.

Basketball, scholarship and leadership are often intertwined. I did a workshop for Black teens focusing on what stresses you out, how to take care of yourself. I also shared this workshop at a youth mental health fair.

I did some work with psychologists at a Marin County high school district around their work with Black students — a very small percentage. A couple of the students did talk about cyberbullying and social media. So, not only is it the addictive quality of social media and the interactions, it’s wanting to get so many likes and to have thousands of people who are your followers. Then there’s the bullying that can occur and the name calling and the total disrespect — our current president just continues to actually be a poor example of how to be online. Black youth are daily seeing things that are racist whether it’s a joke, song, quote, story or an image. This discrimination and “microaggressions” and unintentional bias — each play a role in the school-to-prison pipeline. After Trump was elected, Black children across the country received texts telling them to “report to the plantation.”

Black and brown kids are getting disciplined at these higher rates and even in preschool, Black children are 50% more likely to be expelled from preschool. Who does that?

Behaviors that young Black boys may engage in are misperceived or criminalized, even if they’re engaged in the exact same behavior as white students, who are sometimes seen as “just having a bad day.” Part of the problem is the adultification of Black youth, who are treated as though they’re older and more mature than they really are. A 12-year-old girl might be adultified and seen as a 17-year-girl. And willful disobedience is often a matter of opinion.

Based on your experience, what are the top five factors creating mental health challenges for Black youth?

Pressure to perform and succeed both inside and outside the classroom, whether it be at your job or in your relationships, is at the top, as your survey shows. The idea that you have to do or be something to be successful and perhaps work that much harder than white people to get there, combined with the impact of racism and oppression and all its forms.

And what’s happening in your household or on your street can create mental health issues, such as adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Maybe one of your parents is in the judicial system. Maybe they’re getting a divorce. Or perhaps one of your family members is ill and your family doesn’t have the insurance or financial resources to get them the care they need. Or maybe you’re having conflicts with your peers and don’t have anyone in your life. Are you isolated, alone, and feel like you have to do everything on your own? 

If you are a Black teen, what can you do when you’re feeling this way?

Just know that you don’t have to go through anything alone and to really consider, “Who are good support people in my life that I can even just open the door to a conversation about what’s going on with me?” Who can you reach out to? It may be a coach, a teacher, a minister, an auntie, an older sibling, a cousin, a good friend, a physician or a therapist.

It has to start with someone that you trust and then hopefully that person can get you connected with what you might really want or need. Sometimes people feel like, “I don’t want to burden somebody,” or “I’m going to be embarrassed,” or whatever. What I tell teens in crisis [is], “I don’t know who’s in your life. Who do you trust? You know, if things aren’t going well, who do you tend to reach out to? Is there someone that you know is a good listener or that could be there for you if you needed them in the middle of the night?”

Then, I often ask them, “Who are the people you know aren’t good for you and might make things worse or more intense? Who do you want to avoid?” Maybe you end up getting kicked out of the house and you need somewhere to go.

Who are the people, though, that you know aren’t good for you, right? That might make things worse or more intense or who do you want to avoid? So, it’s kind of that balance of brainstorming that.

Sometimes, being able to talk with other folks who look like you about issues like this can be really helpful, too. So, Safe Black Space is a resource that works with young adults all the way up through senior citizens. We can really help identify stressors you may be experiencing, while providing strategies and practical ways that we can cope.

It’s very holistic. We might focus on our mind in one session and then our bodies and then our spirit and then our community so that people get an opportunity to talk with others who get it, while also identifying ways to cope and respond, while learning how to love ourselves as Black people. It’s not that everybody has internalized racism, but it’s so pervasive that being able to again be in a space that honors your Blackness, your culture, your music, your background, your dress, where you don’t have to show up any other kind of way, except as you.

Mental Health Resources for Black Youth

• Soul Space with ONTRACK Program Resources provides hands-on resources to maintain mental health, substance use prevention, financial stability, and emotional wellness through culturally affirming connections, education, and practical support. Soul Space is cost-free to the Black community at large. Learn more at ontrackconsulting.org/services-projects/soul-space.

• Black Health and Wellness Directory provided by the California Black Health Network lists health care and wellness providers and practitioners that reflect our community, understand our lived experience, and provide more inclusive and respectful care. Search and find one near you. Enter the type of professional you are considering and your location to get started at  cablackhealthnetwork.org/directory-landing/.

• Safe Black Space provides online community healing circles monthly and in-person circles quarterly for Black-identified youth and adults, in addition to African drumming circles, meditation and book study groups, and educational outreach to address Black racial stress, trauma and healing. Get general information and events at safeblackspace.org.

• Black Therapist List: blacktherapistlist.com/find-a-therapist.

• Therapy for Black Girls: providers.therapyforblackgirls.com.

• Free Black Therapy: freeblacktherapy.org.

• Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective (BEAM): Access BEAM’s Get Help Now web page, which provides information about where to get help. It also provides information about receiving a mental health diagnosis and steps to take to get care and support. beam.community/get-help-now.

• BEAM’s Black Virtual Wellness Directory provides a catalogue of providers. Search by state, needs, insurance and other factors. wellness.beam.community.

• Psychology Today: Find Black providers at psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/ca/sacramento?category=african-american.