Teenage years get a lot of hype—coming-of-age moments, big identity breakthroughs, friendships that last a lifetime. And sure, those things happen. But they’re just a few colors in a much messier, more complicated picture of adolescence. Self-doubt, loneliness, and angst are some of the bleaker moments we cannot ignore for young Canadians, as nearly 10% aged 15 to 24 have a mood disorder, and almost 13% suffer from anxiety.1
Imagine Liam: a 17-year-old boy navigating a constant undercurrent of anxiety while juggling school, friendships, and the pressure to keep it all together. He’s the kind of friend others lean on—kind, dependable, and always there. Yet when it came to his own struggles, Liam kept them hidden; like so many, he was taught to bottle things up. It’s not that he didn’t try to get help; he did. Every effort was met with closed doors. And in the end, it’s the crushing weight of his struggles that led him to attempt to take his own life.
Many young people in Canada struggle to access mental health support when they need it. This can be attributed to several systemic barriers like excruciatingly long wait times, confusing referral pathways, pervasive stigma around seeking help, and services that don’t reflect clients’ lived experiences or cultural identities.1 When we hear stories like Liam’s, it’s hard not to wonder: what could have made it easier for young people to ask for help?
This article will explore how behavioral science tools like nudges, boosts, and EAST can help remove friction when young people try to access mental health support. In our focus on the 12-24 age range as a stretch of life that doesn’t fit so neatly into child or adult systems, we will come to appreciate the shared pain points in how and when help is sought. And without making too many promises on results, we’ll discuss how incorporating decision science can make for easier, smoother access to these mental health services until seeking help feels as natural as needing it.
But first, what does “youth” really mean?
Supporting young people’s mental health begins with clearly defining what “youth” means in the Canadian context, particularly in relation to how different age groups access mental health tools and services. A key issue is how young people’s age alone can limit their ability to access mental health care and support.
According to Statistics Canada, the term “youth” typically refers to individuals aged 15 to 24, though some mental health services extend this range to include ages 12 to 24. This broad definition often lumps together individuals at very different stages of development, with distinct needs and experiences.2 With this in mind, we can zoom in on three key considerations: mental health coverage and eligibility, developmental milestones, and seamless, tailored access to services.
An unignorable caveat is that the mental health needs of young people aged 12 to 24 are too complex to be neatly captured by a single category. Within this range, individual differences show great variation depending on specific age, identity, and context. We are only at the tip of the iceberg.
Still, broad age-range labels like 12 to 24 can hold value: they reflect real patterns in lived experience, help capture those who might otherwise be overlooked, and acknowledge the continued mental and emotional development that extends into the early 20s. Beyond the age range, we can’t lose sight of the bigger issue at hand—the challenges youth face when seeking mental health support are compounded by a fundamental lack of access to that support in the first place.
Meeting youth where they are
“You just don’t get what it's like for kids these days.”
The above quote captures what it feels like for many young people struggling with their mental health. Bridging the gap between understanding and access often starts by organizing services into broad categories—like by age—which helps providers reach diverse groups with overlapping needs. Organizations like Foundry in B.C. or Youth Wellness Hubs in Ontario follow this guideline by focusing on the 12-24 age group.3, 4 This involves categorizing young people and their needs while recognizing unique experiences and backgrounds.
Adolescence and young adulthood represent a critical life stage, one that reminds us that developmental trajectories are idiosyncratic. Coping with challenges while growing up will be different for each young person, underscoring the importance of meeting them where they are, not where they’re expected to be. On that note, it's important to emphasize the role of culture in shaping mental health: whether mental health is accepted, stigmatized, or embraced; how treatment takes form—through medicine, social relationships, rituals, or traditional therapies; and even how mental health conditions are understood within a society, group, or community—all of these are deeply influenced by cultural context.
Considering real-life transitions and lived experience
“Growing up is hard enough, especially when you're still figuring out who you are in a world that's changing just as fast."
What it means to experience changes in teenage and early adulthood is as dynamic as ever. Young people are now exposed to many perspectives, societal pressures, and the inescapable influence of the internet from very early on. Understanding these complex challenges means we have to pay attention to when transitions happen, and how lived experiences inform the mental health trajectories of young people, whether it results in resilience, trauma, or a bit of both. From teens overusing ChatGPT to iPads being used as pacifiers, some crucial points here include:
- From the turbulent start of adolescence to the coming of age in early adulthood, 12 to 24 captures the actual time frame when mental health shifts significantly and identities take shape.5 Risk factors are on full display during this time, and social proof has a significant influence.
- Taking a biopsychosocial approach is essential for developmental transitions and real-life experiences. Unlike traditional medical models, where problems are disease-oriented, a biopsychosocial framework critically considers the origins of mental health struggles from observing biology, psychology, and social factors. It’s not only about changes in social settings, hormonal and emotional switches, and the interplay between them.
- The 12-24 age group faces distinct pressures worthy of different support. This age range isn’t a mere legal category; it reflects a shared period of change marked by school transitions, growing identities, and social and cultural pressures. For young people seeking mental health support, their needs aren’t perfectly congruent with child or adult systems. Instead, services must be designed for their realities, not the general population.
Keeping the handoff smooth and age-appropriate
“I would ask for help if I knew I was included, and it wasn’t so hard to find.”
Asking for help is a challenge across all ages, but the reasons differ. The same holds true when it comes to engaging with mental health services, especially across the wide 12–24 age range, where developmental needs and experiences can vary drastically. A 13-year-old entering high school won’t seek help the same way a 20-year-old college student will. To design resources for such a wide age bracket, the full range of behaviors needs to be considered: from the initial moment a young person thinks to reaching out, all the way to successful access to care.
Beginning at age 12, we need to design developmentally appropriate services that make support options intuitive and accessible. Extending this support through age 24 gives young people time to build the confidence to ask for help before they age out of the system. Behavioral science can help shape these systems, making it easier for youth to find and engage with the support they need, wherever they are in their mental health journey.
Behavioral science tools to ignite help-seeking
As we reflect on the barriers youth face in finding trusted mental health support, behavioral science offers practical tools to boost help-seeking behavior. These aren’t just theories—they’re strategies so that young people can actually get help. Before connecting the challenges to potential solutions, we’ll focus on three in particular: nudge theory, the EAST framework, and decision architecture.
Before diving into the discussion, let’s begin with some basic behavioural science concepts:
- Nudge: A subtle change in the way options are presented that steers people toward better decisions, while preserving their freedom to choose.
- Sludge: Friction or barriers that make actions harder and discourage someone from following through with a behavior.
- Boost: A strategy that builds people’s decision-making skills or knowledge, empowering them to make better choices on their own over time.
- Choice Architecture: The design, organization, and presentation of choices that shape how decision-makers behave and influence their outcomes.
Nudges, sludges, and boosts are already used by hundreds of nudge units across the globe, including in Canada by the Behavioral Insights Group (BIG) in B.C.6 7 So, why not use these resources to promote youth mental health?
But, we need more than tools to tackle the problem—we need a framework that ensures consistent application. We can take this dilemma to the EAST by making mental health services Easy, Attractive, Social, and Timely for youth:
- EAST (Easy, Attractive, Social, Timely): A framework developed by the Behavioural Insights Team that shows how to design interventions people are more likely to act on.8
We’ll come back to EAST soon. Before we can apply a framework, we have to understand the connection between youth mental health problems and behavioral science. While age-specific needs may seem obvious now, adolescence wasn’t recognized as a distinct “phase” in mental health care until the early 20th century.9 Today, youth advocacy is leading the way: young people want autonomy, strengths-based approaches, and a say in the systems meant to support them.10 In helping them find their voice, behavioral science may be the microphone that turns up the volume.
A behavioral science lens on youth mental health barriers
There are three core challenges in youth mental health where behavioral science can offer meaningful solutions. First, as we’ve discussed, there are many barriers that prevent young people from reaching out in the first place. Second, even when problems are visible, they are often dismissed or go unaddressed, compounding over time. Third, when it comes to mental health and young, vulnerable populations; problems are often multi-layered. This requires an extra thoughtful approach, especially when it comes to ethics. Together, these challenges highlight the need for careful, evidence-informed design of youth mental health systems.
Access Barriers for Initial Help-Seeking
Many young Canadians facing mental health issues run into barriers that prevent them from seeking help, such as complex intake processes, long wait times, and overwhelming choices, not to mention the proliferation of stigma.
We all know how frustrating this can be when trying to get an initial appointment. The numbers don’t lie: about 50% of Canadians wait a month for a community mental health counselor from referral to the first session,11 and medical professionals like psychiatrists take even longer, ranging from six months to a year.12 And the cost of care? Nearly 60% of young Canadians between 18-24 with early signs of mental illness feel it's too expensive to seek the services they need.13
Learnings from behavioral science can be used to reduce friction and streamline choices to align with making help-seeking more accessible. In practice, this can be an intake form for a mental health service created with a youth-friendly behavioral design. The form would ask only the essential trauma-informed questions needed to book a first appointment, making the process feel less overwhelming. This kind of experience can also help normalize mental health support for young people, opening the door to broader conversations that challenge stigma.
The Impact of Untreated Mental Health Issues
When mental health issues are left unaddressed, a scary ripple effect can ensue, undermining young people’s ability to maintain stable employment, avoid addiction, and build strong connections in their communities. These problems are by no means an exhaustive list of issues, but represent some recently emphasized by the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA).13 It may sound obvious, but it bears repeating (especially for those who have been marginalized or institutionalized because of mental illness) that all humans should have the right to mental wellness—and the ability to flourish.
Preventing mental health crises means intervening even before warning signs appear. Behavioral science can mitigate barriers to support and design systems that nudge young people to timely, informed action. The goal isn’t only about access to these supports, it's about the confidence and clarity of how to use them. For example, embedding simple mental health check-ins directly into school portals by default can normalize early engagement, while guiding young people to create specific “if-then” plans—such as if I feel persistently anxious, then I will message my counselor—can dramatically increase the likelihood they’ll seek help when it matters. With the right behaviorally backed designs, systems can proactively promote resilience instead of only reacting to crises.
Concern for ethics with youth mental health: autonomy and vulnerability
Young people want and deserve a say in their care, making it critical to design mental health interventions ethically, with a focus on supporting autonomy. The blueprints of mental health services should use behaviorally informed design to preserve and enhance clients’ freedom of choice. For example, by offering clear options among evidence-based treatments, each with transparent benefits and drawbacks, individuals can select what best suits them. In both mental health and behavioral science, empowering people with meaningful choices is essential; solutions should foster voluntary, confident engagement rather than pressuring compliance, creating support that feels organic rather than mandatory.
This is especially relevant given recent trends toward more coercive mental health policies in B.C. with involuntary care.13 Encouraging voluntary help-seeking through thoughtful design preserves the freedom to choose. Involuntary mental health care brings a difficult dilemma into the public view: individuals can be confined and treated without their preference or even consent. When care reaches this point, it is a clear signal that the system has already failed the person, far too long after the stage of desiring and hoping for initial access to support at one’s own choosing.
An essential ethical consideration is the vulnerability of youth, who are at high risk for mental health challenges. Mental health exists on a continuum—some young people experience ongoing struggles, while others become acutely vulnerable in moments of crisis. This nuance demands that we design to support, not manipulate, facilitating decision-making at every point on that spectrum. When applying behavioral insights to mental health, ethics must remain central to ensure that interventions are empowering, transparent, and attuned to the realities of vulnerability.14 15
Heading EAST for Youth Mental Health
In a complex world, EAST has been updated for complex problems such as the one at hand in youth mental health.17
In complementary fashion, nudges, sludges, and boosts may be brought into the picture in conjunction with EAST for more fruitful solutions. These are mere fragments of the solution to the problem at hand. But we can see how they’re important:
- Nudges can guide youth toward mental health options by making it easier, more attractive, and less overwhelming, without restricting freedom of choice.
- Sludges need to be addressed (like complex forms or long waits) as they make “good” behaviors harder to choose; we can “desludge” these processes via behavioral science
- Boosts build decision-making skills. Teaching coping strategies in classrooms or guiding youth to credible self-help tools empowers them to make better choices long after the nudges.
The bottom line? When the system works with you rather than against you, getting help doesn’t feel like a chore nor a coercion—it feels like a choice you’re actually ready to, and willing to make.
behavior change 101
Start your behavior change journey at the right place
Behavioral Science has Potential Tools, Not Promised Results
I am not suggesting that EAST and nudges alone can guarantee miracles for mental wellness, nor that sludges are direct pathways to mental illness. Rather, the awareness and application of behavioral science tools have the potential to increase how much and in what way youth engage in help-seeking or not. What if accessing support felt intuitive, welcoming, and timely? Then wouldn't more people take that step? Behavioral science doesn’t offer all the answers, yet it has tools that can help reshape environments in ways that reduce friction and gently guide us toward the support needed.
Beyond nudges, boosts are on the rise, and frameworks like EAST consistently evolve to keep up with the rapid evolution of global social problems in behavioral science.17 18 Today, we focus on Canada, but youth across the globe grapple with mental wellbeing and illness.
In the UK, behavioral science frameworks like EAST have already been embedded into mental health interventions. From using social norms to encourage help-seeking, to personalizing digital resources, and even prompting clinicians to invite discussions about mental health during routine consultations.19 These small but meaningful design choices reflect how decision science can improve public mental health. We can only hope that Canada will soon follow suit in its application of the same principles for more accessible, proactive mental health systems.
With these reflections, behavioral science can be a medium to help solve the problem of youth mental health in the sense that it is:
- A fragment of the solution: While BI isn't a complete solution to the complex challenges of mental health, it can meaningfully improve accessibility and support for youth.
- An ethical tool: Behavioral science provides an ethical, human-centered approach to improving mental health help-seeking, empowering young people to make informed choices without coercion.
In this envisioned version of youth mental health intertwined with behavioral science frameworks, we have reasons to be optimistic for the young people of today and how they look for help in the future. Remember that mental health impacts all ages, but for now, let’s make seeking mental health support with success for young people easier one behavioral insight at a time.
