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When Marvin Pérez and his family moved from their home country of Guatemala to Oakland, California, he thought it would lead to a better life for them all. But two years ago, when he was 23, Pérez was walking home from a store just four blocks from his family’s house. Someone drove past him and shot at Pérez multiple times, hitting him in his left leg.

His physical recovery was difficult. The bullet couldn’t be removed and remains lodged inside the leg. Pérez spent about three months doing physical therapy and resting at home, which meant he couldn’t play soccer, his favorite pastime. The mental toll he endured, however, was far tougher. During the day, all he could think about was the shooting, and when he slept, he had nightmares about what happened to him. It was made even harder by the fact that he felt as if he didn’t have anyone he could share these feelings with.

“The emotional and psychological problems I faced were so big, I couldn’t handle it on my own,” Pérez said in Spanish.

Eventually, Pérez, who’s now 25, received counseling services from Youth Alive, an Oakland-based gun violence intervention nonprofit, which helped him process the trauma of what happened. “It was a turning point in my life because for the first time, I had someone who I could tell my problems to and who wouldn’t judge me,” he said.

Now, Youth Alive is one of the sponsors of a new California bill that would make these kinds of mental health services available to the thousands of youth across the state who are affected by gun violence every year. The Thrive Act – the Trauma Healing and Resilience Investment for Victimized and Exposed Youth Act – would set up a pilot program to offer counseling and other mental health resources to people under 25, regardless of immigration status, who have been shot, lost a family member to gun violence, or witnessed a shooting.

It would fill a critical gap in care, supporters say, because unlike Pérez, most young gun violence survivors do not receive mental healthcare. About three in five children nationally don’t receive mental health services after a firearm injury, while other young survivors may never seek assistance due to stigma and distrust of mental health providers.

“ So many youth go through these [traumatic] things and are expected to try to navigate a complicated bureaucracy, stacks of paperwork in order to get seen,” said Gabriel Garcia, Youth Alive’s policy and advocacy director.

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The Thrive Act came about in part as a response to last year’s mass shooting at a child’s birthday party in Stockton. Three children – ages 8, 9 and 14 – and a 21-year-old were killed, and 11 more were injured. Soon after, Californians for Safety and Justice, an advocacy group that’s also sponsoring the bill, brought the idea of better access to long-term mental healthcare to the attention of assemblymember Sade Elhawary, a Democrat whose district includes parts of south Los Angeles that have been disproportionately affected by gun violence.

“ We’re ensuring that we’re not continuing the cycle of violence because oftentimes folks see that their mode of coping is retaliation,” said Elhawary, who coauthored the bill with Democratic assemblymembers Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, Mialisa Bonta and Maggy Krell.

The bill proposes using state grants to implement pilot mental health programs in Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Solano and Alameda counties, all of which have high rates of gun deaths.

Despite a decrease in firearm homicides in major US cities over the past five years, firearm violence remains the leading cause of death among children and adolescents in the country. About 5,000 children are injured or killed by firearms each year, according to research published by the University of Texas Medical Branch.

“ We’ve seen gun violence decline over the years, which is great, but that doesn’t mean it’s totally over,” Elhawary said. “Communities like ours really often still get the brunt of what we do see.”

Nicole Kravitz-Wirtz, an associate professor at the Centers for Violence Prevention at the University of California, Davis, says that even when a young person survives gun violence, it can disrupt their life for years through post-traumatic stress, anxiety, hyper-vigilance, substance abuse and emotional dysregulation. These symptoms can be compounded by environmental factors such as family stress, poverty and housing instability, which are common in neighborhoods with higher rates of firearm violence, she said.

But psychological trauma recovery services for youth are often fragmented, said Kravitz-Wirtz. A young person may be treated at a hospital after a shooting and have their physical wounds patched up, but there isn’t always a clear pathway into ongoing mental healthcare.

Black and Latino communities, which are disproportionately affected by gun violence both in California and nationally, face additional barriers to accessing mental healthcare, like less financial resources, stigma associated with seeking help, and fewer providers in their neighborhoods.

The bill, Garcia said, would start to eliminate some of these barriers. “ Transformation, I think, is something that seems to only be possible when somebody has the support they need that’s really addressing the trauma,” Garcia said.

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Elhawary says the biggest challenge isn’t garnering support for the bill, which recently passed the assembly floor and is under review by the Senate health and judiciary committee, but securing the millions of dollars necessary for the pilot program.

So she’s working with fellow legislators and participating counties to help them understand that this isn’t just an important undertaking, but a feasible one. “ They [assemblymembers] are supportive of the bill. It’s just how we get to the point where it then becomes a priority in terms of what we invest in, in terms of the budget,” Elhawary said.

Garcia says another challenge will be getting lawmakers to put money into low-income communities that are affected by gun violence every day. “ When we’re talking about mass shootings, we focus on communities where there isn’t a normalization of gun violence, but ultimately, the individuals that are most impacted are coming from communities like ours in Oakland,” Garcia said.

Meanwhile, Pérez sees what a difference counseling has made. He feels more comfortable playing soccer outside again, even if he is more vigilant of his surroundings. He favors any legislation that would make mental health services more widely available. Although he was initially skeptical to start counseling, he’s now grateful for the peace of mind it’s given him, even though there’s still more healing to do.

“God has a plan for us, and that’s why we [survivors] have been given another opportunity,” Pérez said. “Don’t quiet yourself, tell your problems to someone else so you can receive the help you need.”