Page 5 - Healthcare News Mar/Apr 2021

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HANNAH PAGANO,
MASTER OF ARTS IN COUNSELING STUDENT
MARCH/APRIL 2021 WWW.HEALTHCARENEWS.COM 5
MENTAL HEALTH CONT’D
Jessica Collins says parents sometimes feel too stressed to re- ally listen to their kids — but they need to.
— kids were suddenly learning at home, and many of their parents were suddenly working there. It has been a challenging time, particularly for working parents with young children who need help with school.
But transitioning back to whatever will pass for the new normal poses its own challenges, she said. “It was originally going to be two weeks, and weeks turned into months, and months became a year. Now, they’re going back out into a world that’s changed; it’s not going to be the same — there will be masks and social distancing and limitations on clubs and activities.”
Socially, certain young people — those with a more introverted personality — found they thrived in the remote setting, and are anxious about return- ing to campus, Burgess added. Others found the home setting to be an escape from bullying, and are palpably fearful about going back.
Meanwhile, some students, depending on how rigorous their remote-learning experience was, might find themselves overwhelmed or feeling aca- demically behind as teachers play catch-up. Many students report coasting to passing grades, even very good grades, while feeling they haven’t been learning much.
And the economic struggles affecting many fami- lies who lost income or jobs — a definite stressor on kids — certainly aren’t over.
Tamera Crenshaw, a clinical psychologist and founder of Tools for Success Counseling in Long-
meadow, said she’s especially passionate about mental health in minority populations, a demo- graphic disproportionately affected by mental- health issues — because, again, those issues tend to be exacerbated by factors like economic stress, which have also landed hard on those populations during COVID-19.
“Kids are excited to
go back and see their friends and have some sense of structure, to be in society again. But there are definitely a lot of adjustments to be made.”
Even remote learning has been a greater problem for communities of color because of issues of technological access and family strife over financial matters, she added. “Home isn’t necessarily the most conducive learning environment — and CO- VID just exacerbated it.”
Please see Impact, page 7