By Madeline Green

After months of building up the courage, a teenager sits across from a therapist, prepared to unpack years of buried experiences, past trauma, ongoing struggles and the pressures that follow them into the present moment. The room is quiet. But as the teenager begins to speak, they realize that feelings shaped by culture, family and identity resist simple explanations. Not everything the teen carries can be easily translated.

For many young people in Wisconsin, this moment of self-consciousness, or even self-sensoring, is not usual, reflecting a broader gap in youth mental health services, one where people seeking help do not always see themselves reflected in the professionals, spaces, or systems meant to support them. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that 70% of social workers and 88% of mental health counselors were white, as one example.

Despite commitments to equality within so many spaces, from school guidance counseling to local practices providing therapy, racial and other kinds of diversity still lag in mental health arenas. And for children and adolescents seeking support, the weight of their experiences— the pressures they face at home and in society—often becomes lost in translation.

Youth mental health services are designed to help individuals feel welcomed and included, and to provide relationships of trust for children from different backgrounds, racial groups and economic classes. This gap prevents youth of color and non-native English speakers from accessing important, life-changing mentorship. The lack of racial and linguistic diversity can discourage young people of color and bilingual youth from seeking services.

In an article Latino community support and leadership efforts published by Isthmus in 2014, Karen Menendez Coller of Centro Hispano said, “You really need an agency that’s going to figure out how to bring them out of the shadows.” 

She also noted that all too often programs purporting to provide support for mental health issues “aren’t grounded in evidence,” and described a fear among undocumented individuals, “How can they help me here?” which “leads to a lot of mental health problems and anxieties.”

And the issues Coller pointed to over a decade ago haven’t gone away. The Dane County Human Services 2024 Youth Assessment report showed that while 50.1% of white students who are depressed are receiving mental health services, “only 28% of students of color who are depressed are receiving mental health services,” showing a major disparity in services.

As the state’s population becomes more diverse, services must reflect this diversity through their staffing and outreach efforts to build trust and enhance access. In Dane County, this gap is especially evident in bilingual services. Sami Head, the comprehensive community services (CCS) program manager at BriarPatch, explained how limited bilingual representation can become a major barrier.

“There are about 100 agencies that do CCS, 30 agencies that serve youth and only eight of them are bilingual Spanish,” she said. “That is a huge funnel, so it was really important for me in developing CCS at BriarPatch to have a bilingual individual on staff who could serve a community that’s underserved.”

Youth who have experienced trauma, poverty or discrimination often rely on adults they can relate to. Representation plays a key role in building these connections, as well as the availability of mentorship.

Ryan Poe-Gavlinski, a clinical professor at the UW–Madison Law School and expert on child welfare and trauma, emphasizes this relationship.

“I think what’s really, really important, especially when we’re looking at underrepresented groups, and the folks that live in poverty, is finding mentors that look like them, or that live like them,” Poe-Galviniski said.

Poe-Gavlinski noted that this is particularly challenging in Wisconsin, where fewer diverse mentors are available. The absence of shared lived experiences and culture can make mental health services scary and feel disconnected, especially to youth who are reaching out in times of need

She explained that building trust with youth can be extremely difficult, particularly when adults from different backgrounds tell them they should be doing things differently. This disconnect can make it harder to form meaningful relationships to provide support. 

Without efforts to diversify staff and representation, service providers risk youth viewing services as unattainable and outsiders attempting to fix them rather than supporting their story.

This is no easy task for service providers. Head emphasized that responsibility for improving representation should not rest solely with communities of color working in these services, by asking them to fill every hole and gap. Instead, it should be a team effort to support these individuals and bring the services to them in a way that feels natural and loving, she said.

Head added that it is important for white service providers to expand their understanding and experiences, not to become experts, but to share the responsibility so that people of color are not left to handle these challenges alone. She pointed out that many systemic issues involved were created by and rooted in systems shaped by white people, making it their responsibility to be part of the solution.

“There are things that I can do to support my staff who do have these complicated issues. Can I take something off their caseload? Can I help manage things, look for resources for them, make connections for them?” Head said.

Ultimately, improving representation in youth mental health services is not just about the numbers, but about changing the care and quality of the experience itself. When young people see themselves reflected in the professionals supporting them, hear their own language and feel understood, services become less intimidating and more welcoming.

Closing the representation gap requires investment and commitment to meeting the needs of the community. For youth in Dane County and across Wisconsin, the stakes are high. Without equitable access, disparities will continue to widen. But with meaningful representation and shared responsibility, mental health spaces can continue to become places of trust, healing and belonging.