School behavioral health supports often fall short for the students who need them most, particularly young people whose lives are shaped by trauma, housing and food insecurity, and contact with the justice system. Understanding what these students experience, and what would actually help, requires centering their own perspectives rather than designing supports for them from a distance.

Produced by WestEd with the Office of Youth and Community Restoration Youth Advisory Board, this report analyzes California Healthy Kids Survey data from grades 6 through 12 and pairs it with the insights of youth with lived justice-system experience. The findings reveal stark disparities: Students most likely to be impacted by justice systems report substantially lower school connectedness, adult support, and well-being, along with higher rates of social–emotional distress and mental-health-related absences. Drawing on youth voices, the report offers priority recommendations, including building belonging, shifting from punitive to restorative practices, expanding timely and confidential behavioral health services, and designing supports responsive to students’ lived experience.