With Quebec elections approaching and the start of the school year just around the corner, the front-line support organization Tel-Jeunes has issued an alarming report on the province’s youth. They say many teens in distress aren’t able to seek help out of fear of being misunderstood. This psychological distress particularly affects girls and young people from sexual- and gender-diverse backgrounds. A 2022–2023 Quebec Survey on the Health of High School Students showed that the proportion of young people who reported good mental health has been steadily declining since 2016, falling from 47 per cent to 37 per cent in 2022–2023. But a recent Léger survey commissioned by Tel-jeunes shows that only 16 per cent of those teens would seek help. According to Annie Papageorgiou, executive director and founder of Tel-jeunes, the vast majority of young people aged 12 to 17 refrain from seeking help out of fear of being judged, worrying their loved ones, being a burden, or not being understood. “Normalizing empathetic, caring, and non-judgmental support to encourage teens to talk about what they’re going through would be beneficial, because we wouldn’t want to wait until their struggles become too overwhelming, too complex, and too difficult to overcome,” she said. “This is the time when young people develop the protective factors that will help them achieve thriving mental health while building self-confidence and a better understanding of themselves.” Tel-jeunes is calling on future policymakers to prioritize teens in public policy. It also wants Quebec to develop a peer support network to break feelings of isolation and loneliness that many young people experience. The organization also wants to secure government support to establish a “National Forum on Adolescence,” which would bring together young people and stakeholders from the community, institutional, youth, and educational sectors. “Prioritizing our youth means taking care of all of Quebec,” said Papageorgiou. “Quebec’s youth have different needs at each stage of their lives.” Girls and LGBTQ2S+ youth more vulnerable The survey, conducted in the spring of 2026 among 1,200 Quebec teenagers, shows that girls are more vulnerable, with more than a quarter of them reporting dissatisfaction with their lives, but also that LGBTQ2S+teens experience greater distress, with 43 per cent reporting that they are “not very satisfied or not at all satisfied with their lives.” Papageorgiou describes the situation as “extremely concerning” for trans and non-binary youth in Quebec. She cites a 2025 study conducted by the youth research group Chaire-Réseau de recherche sur la Jeunesse du Québec, which shows that nearly 90 per cent of trans and non-binary youth exceed clinical thresholds for depression, and nearly 72 per cent exceed clinical thresholds for anxiety. For the executive director of Tel-jeunes, the survey results reflect the harsh reality her organization faces every day. “The requests for help we receive are becoming increasingly serious and complex,” explained Papageorgiou, noting that half of them are related to mental health and that one in five requests requires a suicide risk assessment. Last year, her organization saw a 20 per cent increase in the number of requests for help it received, for a total of 50,000 requests from teenagers. With the upcoming Quebec election, she hopes leaders will view adolescence more as a pivotal period with specific needs, rather than simply a transition to adulthood. - By Quentin Dufranne - This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Aug. 10, 2026.
