This study aimed to identify the understanding of managers of family health units that do not count on CAPSij (Child and Youth Psychosocial Care Center), about child and adolescent mental health, and their perception of the understanding of the team about child and adolescent mental health. This is qualitative descriptive-exploratory research, based on the theoretical reference of Public Health Policies, Mental Health, Psychosocial Care for Children and Adolescents, and Primary Health Care (PHC). Twenty-one Primary Care professionals participated, who were managers of Family Health Units linked to three municipalities in the State of São Paulo, of different dimensions. Participants were interviewed based on semi-structured scripts. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed with a technique of the Collective Subject Discourse (CSD). Some of the results showed: (a) the belief of the participants that the family, economic and social experiences of children and adolescents in their life contexts directly affected their mental health; (b) the failure to identify cases of child and adolescent mental health by the managers of the participating units; (c) managers' divergent perception of the team's understanding of the child and adolescent mental health. Based on the results, it is suggested that if the strengthening of matriculation and/or continuing 1 The results of this article are an integral part of the dissertation entitled "Mental Health for Children and Adolescents: identifying realities in municipalities that do not have CAPS for children and adolescents, based on primary health care", developed by Mariana Santos De Giorgio Lourenço, guided by Dr. Thelma Simões Matsukura, developed with the Graduate Program in Occupational Therapy at the Federal University of São Carlos. All ethical procedures were complied and the study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Federal University of São Carlos-UFSCar, under a substantiated opinion number 1,484,766.