By California Children's Trust and California Alliance, June 2020
Our nation is experiencing the rage, grief, fear, and uncertainty of the compounding crises of a global pandemic, economic recession, and response to deeply rooted racial injustice in this country, all of which creates trauma for youth and demands leadership and swift action to strengthen the systems foundational to their healing.
While the public narrative has painted COVID-19 as a shared common trauma, the reality is that the pandemic is disproportionately affecting already marginalized communities. Jevon Wilkes, Executive Director for the California Coalition for Youth (CCY), points to the everwidening disparities across our communities as “COVID-19 leverages structural racism to prey on the vulnerabilities of the people that our public policy consistently undermines— poor people, people of color and people with pre-existing conditions.”1 Youth and families of color, already facing far greater challenges and systemic barriers to health and wellbeing before this crisis, are disproportionately hurt in this turbulent time. CCY’s statewide youth crisis line alone has seen a 227% increase in calls from youth ages 12 to 24 as compared to 2019. These disparities—and the continued systematic racism and violence perpetrated against communities of color—are at the heart of the protests and anger gripping our country today.
Comments (0)