Youth mental health also a key concern amid the pandemic

GRANT COUNTY — As discussions rage over the best ways to protect the physical health of students returning to school amid a global pandemic, many also worry about the effect that the coronavirus has had and will continue to have on their mental health.

As many students and youth remain socially isolated, local mental health professionals are concerned that symptoms of depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation could be worsened, said Dell Anderson, child mental health specialist and director of Grant Integrated Services.

While Grant County has not yet seen similar spikes, surrounding counties have already been dealing with increased call volumes during the pandemic for crisis lines and law enforcement responding to children in crisis, Anderson added.

“In Grant County, we’re kind of just waiting to see that,” he said. “I think that people may become more symptomatic as this lingers and as schools aren’t going on normally, and there are not people to connect with.”

For students most at risk, professionals with the state’s Wraparound with Intensive Services (WISe) program, the highest-level outpatient treatment available for Washington children with mental or behavioral issues, worked for months early in the pandemic to overcome barriers to helping their clients.

While privacy and technical issues were ironed out, WISe staff were unable to meet face-to-face with the youth they work with, said Tanner Long, a youth peer support specialist who has worked with WISe since the beginning of 2019.

“While we were on ZOOM and doing things virtual, it was a little challenging at first to find creative ways to engage the youth,” Long said. “A lot of youth we work with do better with face to face contact.”

This and related disruptions to WISe had significant impacts, and not just on youth. One of the relatively unique features of WISe is that, as part of the “wraparound” services, it is also meant to work with the whole family to develop plans, instead of working just with the youth themselves.

“These families need that level of service, and in many cases, many of the needs are difficult to meet,” said Anderson. “So parents need that level of support as well, and I think there were times that the parents were becoming frustrated because that level of support wasn’t available in person immediately.”

Now, except in cases where parents opt out due to concerns of coronavirus exposure, WISe teams have been able to resume working with youth face-to-face, said WISe supervisor Angelica Eldrick. The resumed in-person activity has been helpful, she added, and many of the youth she works with, who may have had social media or internet access taken away due to behavioral issues, are excited to have someone outside of the family to talk to.

But while the highest-risk students are likely to experience increased social isolation, as well as other mental health issues, the overall youth population will face similar challenges. Counseling services will still be available through the school district, but many students, particularly those enrolled in online-only learning, may have a harder time accessing those resources, said Chris Mason, a school counselor at Chief Moses Middle School.

It isn’t uncommon in a normal school year for students, faced with challenges that may have percolated throughout the day, to sign-up in-person for a same-day meeting with a counselor, Mason said. It’s not clear that students on-site, taking in-person classes, will have that kind of direct access to their offices, he said, though they will be in the building.

For students enrolled in remote learning, easily accessible time with a counselor may not be as readily available, Mason added.

“What I would like is to send out an invite, here’s my schedule, and you can schedule me for 15, 30, 45 minutes,” Mason said. “You can let me know what option you prefer, over phone, Zoom, whatever works for you.”

If students need it, Mason said, he would even potentially be willing to travel to their homes and meet with them from a safe distance. Being face-to-face with a student while they’re trying to navigate and assess their mental health is important, he added.

“We rely a lot on facial expressions and your body language to determine disposition and how you’re feeling,” Mason said.

But, he added, even though the school year is fast approaching, with classes expected to begin in just a couple of weeks, he and fellow counselors have gotten little in the way of guidance regarding what will be allowed. That includes, he notes, uncertainty whether students will be able to have contact with Brodi the therapy dog, the chocolate Lab whom Chief Moses students fell in love with last year and helped them open up during counseling.

Beyond the work of his fellow counselors, both two-legged and four-legged, Mason expressed concern about the impact on the emotional growth of students who normally have to learn in school to adapt to their social environment and overcome challenges with their peers. Even for in-person learning, students expected to keep their distance are likely to have their interactions with their classmates significantly limited, Mason noted.

“I really think that middle school is full of milestones that are met through the face-to-face model of school, like how to deal with a bully, figuring out who you are, who is a friend and who isn’t a friend and how to distinguish between them,” Mason said.

While mental health professionals expressed differing views on what the correct approach would be to the upcoming school year, all agreed that students of all stripes will be at higher risk for the foreseeable future. More mental health treatment has become available in recent years without youth necessarily needing a diagnosis to access that treatment, Anderson noted, and families should not hesitate to try to access those resources if needed.

In addition to national hotlines, Anderson added that there are two crisis lines servicing local residents of all ages, including the North Central Crisis Line available at 1-800-852-2923 and a Moses Lake line available at 509-765-1717.