NYC educators brace for student mental health challenges after coronavirus lockdown on classes ends

Public School 536 teacher Chloe Davis greets her students on Zoom.
Public School 536 teacher Chloe Davis greets her students on Zoom.

City educators and advocates say the coronavirus crisis is mentally hurting young people the most — and they’re worried schools won’t be prepared when classes start up again.
“We’ve had quite a few students who are losing grandparents, students who are caring for parents and grandparents,” said a school social worker in Queens who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
“Engaging students back in school is going to be very challenging,” the social worker said. “We have just experienced a sort of collective trauma.”
Mayor de Blasio said last week that a “focus on mental health and support for everyone who’s been through this crisis will be crucial to our plan to reopen in September.”
But advocates say the city’s current approach to dealing with the most severe mental health challenges is drastically lacking.
Despite an influx of new social workers, city students were escorted to hospitals for mental health crises more than 3,000 times last school year — trips that advocates argue are unnecessary and traumatic.
“We have to do things differently," said Dawn Yuster, the director of the School Justice Project at Advocates for Children, one of dozens of organizations that sent a letter Friday to the city Education Department sounding the alarm on mental health services.
“The public health crisis is hopefully going to shine a light on the fact that we cannot continue to treat students the way we have in our schools.”
Yuster and her colleagues are proposing a $15 million investment to launch school partnerships with local hospitals. The initiative would give schools a hotline to call to help de-escalate crises, and would send mental health clinicians to schools and students’ homes for counseling.
"This type of direct connection to clinicians who can evaluate and help ... would be very valuable,” said the Queens school social worker.

The social worker said she was particularly worried about how next year would play out for students with pre-existing mental health challenges who are now struggling to cope with the pandemic.

“I have a student who’s very, very stressed. Her grandfather is ill, she’s helping to care for him, and I can’t see her,” the social worker said, adding she has to rely on text messages to offer comfort and support.

Educators expect many students to come back with lingering trauma.

“I see it as honestly being kind of a therapy session,” said Chloe Davis, a teacher at Public School 536 in the Bronx. “Kids are going to need a lot more hugs and love just to make them feel safe again."

“We agree that mental health services are critical to supporting our students and staff," said Education Department spokesman Nathaniel Styer. "This administration has invested in an unprecedented expansion of programs available to students, and we’re doing even more during this unprecedented crisis, We’ll be sharing more resources with students and staff soon.”

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