We need to get back to school for the mental health of kids and adults
Mental health is becoming a trendier topic in Kentucky in the past months. About time, I say! Authority figures tell us that it is important to make our emotional and mental well being a priority as we navigate through the unchartered waters of quarantine and all things COVID-19 related. That is true. So, what are we doing about this? We use masks to save lives, so what practical techniques are being provided for our mental/emotional well-being to save lives? While it is horrific that it has taken pandemic related suicides in children to draw our attention to this topic, I would like to ask the question of what is being done at a state level to provide prevention tactics for these nightmares? Along with the rest of the world, our children have been grossly impacted by COVID-19.
Teachers have participated in the making of miracles, by adapting to Zoom while consistently being given a tentative re-opening date that keeps getting pushed back. How is the state of Kentucky providing these teachers with the mental health resources they need to do their job properly? Why are teachers having to take personal time as well as spend their meager salaries on their mental health due? Funding is available to do this and yet where are these resources? I hope that someone with much more authority than I have, is creating a transition plan for families and teachers, to re-enter the school setting and address the social anxiety that is already present in our children and will only get worse without intervention.
“Healthy at Home” had become the slogan for 2020 in Kentucky and I am 100 percent behind doing what I can in order to “decrease the spread and flatten the curve” yet I have seen with my eyes how our families have turned into “Unhealthy at Home” due to the neglect and ignorance towards their emotional and mental well-being. Kentucky schools received generous amounts of funding from the CARES Act. Have we exhausted these resources and therefore there just is not enough funding for our families and teachers to receive mental health awareness training and individual/group services? The ever-rising cases of anxiety, depression, obsessive compulsive disorder and even suicides in these school age children due to not being in the school setting, will not decline in the soon future. At home abuse can no longer be reported by teachers due to virtual learning. And regardless of how many times a parent can tell a high achieving child that their decrease in grades is now the norm across the state, it will do little to decrease their anxiety and feelings of low self-worth. Whether or not you agree with our grading system, it has been the way these students have understood intelligence and sadly, their self-worth. Client after client I see walk into my office with such heightened anxiety and OCD symptoms due to virtual learning and the lack of socialization with their peers.
Yes, our children are resilient. Yes, we probably can all agree that shutting down the in-person school setting so that we could decrease the number in cases while determining how the virus was spread, was a wise choice. So, we did that. So now what? If the school has been determined as not being a super spreader, why is it not back open? I digress. If I had a one on one with the governor, I would ask, “What is being done to address the suicides and mental health regression in school age children in Kentucky, as well as what are we doing to put into place a mental health “attack” plan for current crises as well as the significant adjustment all with go through with going back to in person school?”.
Hannah Conn provides clinical counseling services through a private practice in Lexington and works with adolescents and adults that struggle with anxiety, OCD and eating disorders.