On a summer day at UC Berkeley, four teenagers jostled at a whiteboard, vying to write down their solutions to an important public health concern. They were having fun even as they took on a heavy task: helping researchers design programs to reduce the skyrocketing suicide rate among Black youth.
In the United States, deaths by suicide have been surging among Black kids and teens for decades. For those between 10 and 17 years of age, the suicide rate rose 144% from 2007 to 2020. What’s more, Black boys die by suicide more than twice as frequently as Black girls, although the suicide rate for Black girls increased by 182% between 2001 and 2017.
As the teenagers brainstormed, Jasmin Brooks Stephens, a Berkeley assistant professor of psychology, watched nearby. The moment was a highlight in research she was conducting with the Homeless Children’s Network on improving mental health outcomes for Black youth. Brooks Stephens believed that teens themselves have meaningful ideas to share, and she had worked for eight weeks with these particular teenagers, who were part of the network’s Jabali Youth Advocacy organization, culminating in their trip to campus.
“One of the most exciting things was seeing them all jump up and say, ‘Wait, we can make a program for making us feel better? We have the power to do that?’” Brooks Stephens recalled. “Seeing them find and discover that sense of agency in themselves — that was invaluable to me.” It also was one of the few times any of the teens had visited a college campus, she said, an added bonus. In future work, Brooks Stephens plans to translate the results of her study for clinicians and policymakers who are trying to improve suicide prevention for Black youth.