"When I lost it, they dragged me out": How Care Encounters Empower Marginalized Young Adults' Mental Health Care-Seeking

Abstract: CSCW research has long explored ways to enhance the well-being of marginalized populations. This study examines how young adults with diverse marginalized identities navigate their mental health care-seeking journeys through in-depth interviews and visual elicitation methods. Our research with 18 U.S. participants reveals predominantly \textit{passive} behavioral patterns shaped by participants' lived experiences of marginalization. A key finding centers on \textit{"care encounters"} - serendipitous interactions with mental health resources that occur when individuals are not actively seeking support. These encounters emerged as critical turning points, catalyzing shifts from passive to proactive care-seeking behaviors. The transformative impact of these encounters operated through three primary mechanisms: tangible assistance, supportive discourse, and social connection building. Our analysis illuminates the infrastructural conditions that enable such transformative encounters and their effectiveness in connecting marginalized young adults with mental health care. This research advances our understanding of how marginalization influences care-seeking behaviors while providing concrete design implications for socio-technical interventions. Our findings suggest strategies for intentionally engineering care encounters that can help overcome passive behavioral patterns and strengthen marginalized young adults' engagement with mental health resources.