The Challenge
Yesterday and today are different. For many, the difference is like night and day. This is the case for those who experience mental health challenges versus those who do not. It is not the same as having a bad day. It’s hard to describe.
In lay terms, mental health is the health of the mind. It recognizes something internal, over which we don’t have control, affects how we feel, think, and act.
For children, they often manifest the difference between changes in routine and performance in school. 50% of all mental disorders develop before the age of 15.
School is a place where a country educates its citizenry to read, write, add, speak, learn diverse ways to problem solve, gain socialization skills, and support and care for students as parents work. Students lost access to food, health care (in-school nurses), routine breaks, social development, play, and teamwork, discipline, sports, self-care, and hygiene (getting dressed, taking shower, and brushing teeth), time management, access to caring adults, and space for self-identity and expression besides EDUCATION.
Schools pivoted to online delivery of academics and some offered food pick-up, but largely schools did not respond to the other 80% of what schools did before. Many felt handcuffed, and so did parents. An increase in mental health concerns was the biggest outcome, especially for those who continued to miss school.
Some general ways to address the situation is offered to aid schools in responding to mental health and students who miss school.
Context
The numbers are still rolling in but UNICEF reports that over 332 million children were linked to the COVID-19 lockdown policies. Many students were absent or affected mentally or physically, from the shutdown, closure, or online delivery of schools during the pandemic.
The impact was of catastrophic proportions with an underlying problem–mental health. For students and teachers, the states of mind, body, place, ability, and connection were disrupted during the pandemic.
Levels of context and feelings around many generalized everyday terms like:
To respond to all states of what was disrupted schools must not focus only on academics but be sure to return to play, fun, music, poetry, role modeling, using community partners, engaging parents. Convene task forces you to get support, but when you do, the American Council on Education suggests focusing on overall campus culture and climate to promote, improve, and foster positive mental health and well-being; improve awareness and access to services, including changes to policies and protocols for supporting mental health. In doing so, the goal remains the same: get students’ thoughts out of their heads, normalize questions and concerns, build relationships, and stay connected. UNICEF Director Forte shares “Many children are left feeling afraid, lonely, anxious, and concerned for their future. We must emerge from this pandemic with a better approach to child and adolescent mental health, and that starts by giving the issue the attention it deserves.”
Mental health can include mixed disorders, conditions, and symptoms, often internalizing and or externalizing associated with impaired socioemotional development or linked historically or diagnostically. Empirical outcomes for students who miss school include changes in behavior and school attendance problems ranging from school avoidance, withdrawal, refusal, truancy to dropout. This is irrespective of the type of stimuli affecting the behaviors, such as avoidance, escape, attention-seeking, or pursuit of rewards outside of school. The factors surrounding the mental illness can be risk and protective, but are often cumulative and bundled risk.
During the pandemic, the bundled risk was clear broadly in time and space. Regarding time, we saw changes in scarcity of time, lack of time management, limited self-care, and partnership in care—outsourcing. Outsourcing of care is a hallmark of our society. It’s where we look to partners who are accustomed to taking care of certain parts of our needs. For example, schools educate, restaurants feed us, doctors and nursing provide health care, sports and events entertain us, and churches offer worship, daycares care for our loved ones, and so on. This “outsourcing” changed drastically with the pandemic and lockdowns. They then compromised space, boundaries got blurred, and crisis and emotional outbursts were common.
Actions for Schools
Most common intervention is Cognitive behavior therapy to respond to anxiety, depression, self-efficacy, emotional distress, social-emotional, academic development. However, Psychosocial Intervention, Narrative Therapy, Motivational Interviewing, Parental Counseling, and Family Therapy are also options. Yet providing resources and education on spotting and responding to somatic complaints (stomachache, feeling unwell or resistive behavior (temper tantrums, violent behavior) are also universal resources that can be offered.
Citation
About the Author
Dr. Carolyn Gentle-Genitty, founder, lead consultant, and Chief Education Officer for Pivot Attendance Solutions, has inspired many administrators, educators, students, and school social workers as a past chair of the school’s concentration Masters Curriculum, tenured professor, and Director of the Bachelors for Social Work Program. Having worked closely with Indiana Department of Education to assist school counselors in acquiring a school counselor license and coordinating curriculum mapping and application, she knows the intricacies of working with school-community partnerships. She has been a forerunner in responding to school absenteeism, truancy, and social bonding. She has over 30 years in youth development, 20 years in dropout and truancy and more specifically she brings over 12 years studying, researching, presenting, and writing about absenteeism locally, nationally, and internationally. In the US she is a leader in absenteeism and understanding school attendance problems and translating such into practice models for implementation. She is forging partnerships in colleges to establish the area as a formal field of study.
