You say your friend is teaching this child--I assume this is in school--dianvan's point about BC is equally true in the US--if the child is suffering, and particularly if, as you say, the child is a suicide risk, the teacher is legally bound to report the child's condition to Child Protective Services--Your teacher friend probably knows about this, but may not be acting on it to protect the grandparents--

If, as you say, the grandparents are illegals, there are probably some complicated guardianship issues that have not been dealt with--especially if the child was born in the US, and is, therefore, an American citizen--Since the family are in East LA, it is pretty likely that the resources to deal with these issues are all overloaded, and from bitter experience, all concerned parties are trying to avoid being sucked into the system--

However, children with high suicide risk always go to the front of the line, and, with luck, all the other issues will have to take a number and wait(not a bad thing. because it buys time, and usually a lot of time)--

So my advice is, tell your friend to do the right thing, which is to bring the kid into the system for treatment, and let the rest of the chips fall where they may--