The Roanoker - July/August 2021 - 36
Shifting the Spotlight to
Children's Mental Health
written by Christina Nifong
After the collective trauma of COVID-19, kids will need help to get back on track.
T
HIS TIME LAST SUMMER, the shock of the
arrival and worldwide spread of COVID19
had worn off. Instead, confusion reigned;
everything felt jumbled. But it wasn't until
schools - preschools, K-12, universities -
sputtered in the fall that the collective cultural attention
focused on one largely universal truth: The kids were
not all right.
After months of seeing few friends, having academics
and sports and arts halted, finding the day's structure
all but disappeared, many students had ceased to thrive.
Parents were finding teens struggling to get out of bed,
eating disorders shot through the roof, the demand for
therapists was out-stripping supply across the country.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics
showed mental health visits to emergency rooms for
adolescents ages 12 to 17 were 31% higher April to
October 2020, as compared to 2019; for children ages 5
to 11, it was up 24%.
That wasn't taking into particular consideration
the children who had buried a parent or lost multiple
extended family members or whose sibling had become
a COVID long-hauler.
" For those who have had terrible losses, it has been
completely devastating, " says Felicity Adams-Vanke, a
practicing psychiatrist and chief of child and adolescent
psychiatry at Carilion Clinic.
Today, with vaccines more available and schools
preparing for in-person instruction, the light of normalcy
is shining brighter.
But just because kids will soon be back on campus
doesn't mean their well-being will simply snap into place,
experts warn. Their social emotional learning may need
as much remediation as their algebra and world history
studies.
" I'm sure there will be long-term consequences for
years to come, " Adams-Vanke says.
One upside of the disruption has been a greater
willingness to talk openly about mental health and to
search for the help that kids of all ages may not even
know they need.
But with demand for therapists higher than ever,
waitlists for kid appointments may stretch as far as six
months in the future.
" People who had been able to maintain, they're seeing
that they're not able to maintain like they used to, " says
Emily Olsen, counselor and clinical supervisor for
enCircle Counseling Services, an agency headquartered
in Roanoke that sees clients statewide. " They're the ones
seeking treatment now. "
36 JULY/AUGUST 2021
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The Roanoker - July/August 2021
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