Trump cut mental health funding for kids. These L.A. teens are stepping in

Los Angeles Times

a day ago

There are a lot of reasons why people reach out to Teen Line, a Century City-based hotline that connects young people in crisis to trained teenage volunteers.
They call because someone is hurting them or they are afraid of hurting themselves. They text because an important relationship has ended or a troubling conflict has started. They feel disrespected, disregarded, dismissed.
At the heart of almost every call, text or email is the same cry of pain: Nobody is listening.
So the teenagers on the receiving end do what they wish adults would make time for more often, the thing nobody seems to be doing enough of these days: They listen.
Almost every single time, for at least the length of a call or a chat session, it's enough.
'Even if their situation is really difficult, the best that we can do at the start is always just to listen,' said volunteer Mendez, 18. (The volunteers' last names are withheld to protect their privacy and anonymity.) 'And even if we don't have a solution for them, I feel like that is one thing that just helps them so much.'
A project of the Los Angeles-based nonprofit Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services, Teen Line is helping to fill an ever-widening gap between the need for mental health support and the resources available.
The phone and text lines are available to youth throughout the U.S. and Canada, and the email address can be used by teens anywhere in the world. Volunteers fielded 8,886 calls, texts and emails in 2024. Managers expect the total will surpass 10,000 this year.
The percentage of high school students who report feeling consistently sad or lonely has risen steadily in the last decade. A study published last fall by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 39.7% of students said they experienced persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness, and 20.4% had seriously considered dying by suicide.
At the same time, government spending cuts have hit many support services.
The Trump administration announced in April that it will stop paying $1 billion in federal grants that school districts nationwide have been using to hire psychologists and social workers.
The 'Big Beautiful Bill' that Congress passed in May proposes major cuts to Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act and the Children's Health Insurance Program, which millions of Americans rely on to access mental healthcare for themselves and their kids.
In July, the administration removed an option on the 988 Suicide and Crisis Hotline that allowed young people identifying as LGBTQ+ to connect directly with counselors specially trained in supporting queer youth. More than 1.3 million queer young people in the U.S. have used the service since its launch in 2022.
None of this has deterred the 60 to 70 young volunteers at Teen Line, who commit to 65 hours of initial training and a minimum of two five-hour shifts per month. The program receives no federal funding and relies entirely on grants and private donations.
Each evening, eight to 12 high school students file into a sunny office in Century City, often after a long day of classes, homework, practices and part-time jobs.
They raid the snack room, settle into cubicles, pick up headsets and spend the next few hours talking and typing with fellow teens seeking support.
The lines are open for calls and texts from 6 to 10 p.m. Pacific Time each evening (the text option closes one hour earlier). Emails can be sent any time of the day or night.
They share an office with adult volunteers for the 988 hotline. With its collection of hand-painted canvases and stuffed animals, though, the Teen Line corner is easy to pick out in the sea of staid cubicles.
Didi Hirsch is by far the largest of the 12 centers in California that respond to 988. Last year, the organization fielded nearly 40% of the 454,146 calls to 988 placed in the state.
Total calls to the crisis hotline this year have already surpassed last year's number, with more than 462,000 calls from California alone, a Didi Hirsch spokesperson said.
People of any age can contact 988, teens included. But a call or text to Teen Line, which has its own 800 number, guarantees a response from a peer who likely understands better than most well-meaning adults what it's like to be a teenager today.
The public discussion about the youth mental health crisis 'really becomes removed from the actual reality of what it's like to be a teen, because the people having these conversations aren't teens. They're people kind of trying to look through the window from outside the glass,' said volunteer Max, 15.
The stereotype of today's teenagers as anxious loners hunched over their phones is limiting and inaccurate, she said, as four fellow volunteers nodded in agreement.
It's not that teens are cut off from real life. It's that so much is coming at them that it can be hard to know how to field it all.
'Being a teen is a time of huge responsibility, but with so little control and so little power,' Max continued. 'You're not the one making decisions about your education. You're not the one deciding where you live or what you're doing until you get to college, and there's so much pressure to succeed. ... We encourage them to think about their situation differently. We don't hand them a different set of cards, but we encourage them to approach it differently. And I think that's what teens need.'
Teen Line isn't intended to be a replacement for long-term therapy or other necessary professional services, Didi Hirsch Chief Executive Lyn Morris said. But it can be a 'stepping stone' for overwhelmed young people who aren't sure where to turn or how to ask for help, she said.
Members of every generation have complained in adolescence that adults don't understand them. But given the number of stressors that didn't exist until recently — social media, school lockdown drills, accelerating climate change — today's teenagers are very often justified in feeling that way.
'We don't have experience in that stuff,' Morris said. 'Thank God the teens have each other.'
It's too soon to know how cuts to 988 and other services will affect Teen Line's caller volume. Volunteers said they're already hearing from people affected by recent policy changes. This includes teens who live in states that ban abortion and are worried that they might be pregnant, and those who tried calling the 988 suicide hotline but couldn't get through to any operators in their state.
In the meantime, for adults concerned about the adolescents in their own lives, volunteers offered some sage advice.
Before whisking the phone away from a teen who's too absorbed in their screen, ask what they're trying to distract themselves from. Listen to teens' opinions when they're moved to share them. And don't be afraid to say the hardest things out loud.
'Beating around the bush can be really suffocating,' said Jules, 17. 'Suicidal ideation, suicidal thoughts, self-injury, stuff like that — just not calling it for what it is can be really harmful. ... Just letting them get it off their chest, and not keep it in or be ashamed of their thoughts, can have a really big impact. You don't realize how much of a relief speaking and talking about it and being listened to can have.'
If you're a young person in need of mental or emotional support, contact Teen Line by calling [phone] from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. PST; texting TEEN to 839863 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. PST; or emailing any time at www.teenline.org/email-us.