In a first for CatchLight: a topic-based visual desk on mental health
Mental health affects everyone, yet countless experiences remain overlooked or unseen. To address this gap, CatchLight launched a three-year editorial visual desk dedicated to mental health. This new, collaborative initiative will support and produce in-depth multimedia reporting while partnering with media organizations and communities across California and beyond. A central focus will be understanding how the state’s $6.4 billion mental health bond investment is being implemented—looking beyond policy and data to the human stories at the heart of these efforts.
The project aims to explore what’s working, what isn’t, and why it matters. Through visual journalism and community engagement, CatchLight and its partners will highlight the impact of mental health challenges on communities, as well as the solutions and support systems emerging across the state.
This month, CatchLight has featured an introductory collection of previous local newsroom reporting on mental health in California in Pictures that demonstrates the power of visual journalism in bringing these realities into focus. The stories span diverse communities and experiences—from youth and young adults, to caregivers and families, to individuals impacted by the criminal justice system, to immigrants and those displaced by climate change.
Subscribe now
In San Francisco, immigrant women are reshaping what mental health care looks like through culturally rooted practices, from cold plunges to community games of lotería. In Southern California, caregivers stand in as surrogate families for individuals who have no living relatives, underscoring the essential role of Medicaid and Medicare. Reporting from Orange County highlights the county’s gamble on voluntary care, told through the lens of those offering and seeking help in unconventional spaces, such as DMV parking lots.
Other stories reveal the toll of uncertainty on young people, including undocumented students navigating higher education under DACA limbo, and aspiring therapists struggling against barriers that make it difficult to enter the profession at a time when demand for mental health services is higher than ever. Meanwhile, coverage from Pine Grove Youth Authority Camp offers a rare glimpse into how incarcerated youth find resilience and improved mental health through teamwork and cooperation on California’s fire lines.
Across these pieces, the central theme is clear: mental health is deeply intertwined with community, identity, and access. By working with photojournalists and reporters rooted in the places they cover, this initiative seeks to surface stories too often left unseen—and in doing so, to reframe our collective understanding of both the challenges and the possibilities of mental health care.
We look forward to working with partners and sharing more from this new initiative next month — there is much more to come.