<\/p>\n
By Maya Pottiger,
Word in Black <\/p>\n
There\u2019s a new incident every day.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Most recently, it was three Black football players being shot to death following a school field trip. Right before that, there was the video of a White teacher telling Black students that his race is \u201cthe superior one.\u201d Earlier this year, a different football team\u2019s season was suspended after reports of alleged \u201cdisturbing\u201d racist remarks in a group chat. And there was the other football season that was canceled after students participated in a \u201cmock slave trade\u201d \u2014 which somehow isn\u2019t uncommon, with at least three other instances of it in the last year.<\/p>\n
But these are only the ones that are filmed. The ones that gain traction online.<\/p>\n
On top of these recorded incidents, Black students face racism every day. And on top of that, there\u2019s still residual trauma from the pandemic. These combined forces are wreaking havoc on students\u2019 mental health and, subsequently, their ability to perform in school.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe aren\u2019t doing a good job,\u201d said Lishaun Francis, the director of behavioral health at the California-based organization Children Now. \u201cMental health has become a big thing in the last two years for folks, but the reality is, as a nation, we have under-invested in mental health for decades.\u201d<\/p>\n
The cracks are beginning to show. COVID-19 shone the light on the limitations of our public health system.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe added on more emotional distress,\u201d Francis said, \u201cand the cracks in the foundation are really showing that it has problems.\u201d<\/p>\n
A volcano waiting to erupt<\/p>\n
Unresolved or unaddressed emotional issues impact the way a student performs \u201cin every way imaginable,\u201d Francis said.<\/p>\n
Black students, especially, may be having different experiences than their classmates, said Dr. Janice Beal, who owns a private practice in Houston and partners with The Steve Fund as a mental health expert. Whether it\u2019s a home environment, difficulty processing trauma exposure, or specific discrimination, like anxiety over the fear of being stopped by police, there\u2019s an impact if these feelings build up and go unresolved.<\/p>\n
Beal equated these feelings to lava in a volcano: They stay at the bottom for a long time and pressure starts to build.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow what may happen is it may be buried, and no one is talking about it, and no one\u2019s addressing it,\u201d Beal said. \u201cAt some point, it explodes and exposes things that may not be associated with what their original trauma was, but they may have kept.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is especially true among communities of color, who are less likely to seek mental health treatment. But the pandemic helped to shift that.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody now understands and is willing to have that conversation,\u201d Beal said. \u201cMore parents are more open to talking to their children about mental health; however, there\u2019s still a major stigma within our communities.\u201d<\/p>\n
In its 2022 report card, Children Now graded California with a D+ for mental health. Despite the state having a progressive reputation, the report card said families are often only able to find mental health services \u201cdue to perseverance, privilege, and luck rather than a comprehensive system.\u201d And, it said, more focus needs to go into increasing culturally competent providers and boosting mental health first aid training for adults who work with kids.<\/p>\n
The mental well-being of California youth declined dramatically during the pandemic, according to the report card. Prior to the pandemic, 68 percent of students rated their mental wellness between 7-10 on a 10-point scale, compared to only 39 percent of youth post-pandemic. There has also been a dramatic increase in suicide rates among Black youth, which the report attributes to \u201cexposure to overt and systemic racism and lack of treatment for depression.\u201d<\/p>\n
And the Children\u2019s Hospital Association said that in 2021, compared to five years earlier in 2016, children\u2019s hospitals saw a 153 percent increase in visits to emergency departments for kids ages 5-18 attempting suicide and other self-injuries. There was also an increase in kids in that age group boarding in hospitals for mental health reasons, up 84 percent since the pandemic, and 75 percent of hospitals are reporting longer stays.<\/p>\n
The problem is that it can be difficult to identify. Mental health and emotional wellness show up differently in everyone \u2014 whether it\u2019s the obvious \u201cproblem child\u201d who is constantly misbehaving and getting low grades, or the people pleaser who is a straight-A student and never wants to disappoint anyone.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou often see this in kids who experienced trauma, that they are so concerned about doing everything right,\u201d Francis said. \u201cBut the reality is it shows up in kids very differently, and we only really recognize and acknowledge the kids who have low grades and act out because it\u2019s easier to identify.\u201d<\/p>\n
In-school resources and their limitations<\/p>\n
The availability and types of resources offered in schools depend on where you are \u2014 both in terms of state and district \u2014 because schools are run by \u201clocal and localized decisions,\u201d Francis said.<\/p>\n
To help fulfill the in-school resources, schools often partner with outside programs. For example, schools will provide a list of online resources that students can turn to for help, like NAMI and The Trevor Project, and advertise the suicide prevention hotline, which is now 988.\u00a0<\/p>\n
During the pandemic, when demand for mental health services skyrocketed, many states started creating websites to streamline resources \u201cto educate families about resources that are available,\u201d Francis said. \u201cWe were really happy to see that because there\u2019s so much information out there, people don\u2019t know where to look.\u201d<\/p>\n
And some schools and turning to telehealth, which allows students to access mental health resources during the day even though the help isn\u2019t in the building.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe partnerships are developing in order to be able to meet some of the needs the students have,\u201d Beal said. \u201cCommunity partnerships are so important.\u201d<\/p>\n
But there are often limitations to school-based resources \u2014 even when it comes to websites.<\/p>\n
For one, websites alone bring access issues. Those living in rural communities often lack regular or private access to strong internet connections.<\/p>\n
The National Association of School Psychologists recommends the ratio of students to psychologists is 500 to 1, but the current ratio is about 1,162 to 1. So while affluent students may be able to afford private mental health professionals, students who can\u2019t \u2014 or whose parents won\u2019t support them getting help \u2014 are stuck fighting for access to an already overwhelmed system in the school.<\/p>\n
So, while learning about mental health issues and disorders is free on a website, what isn\u2019t free is having to pay for the services. This is a different set of limitations on access.<\/p>\n
\u201cBlack people, in particular, feel like there is a dearth of providers who can respond to their specific cultural needs, even though there\u2019s a lot of information online about black mental health,\u201d Francis said.<\/p>\n
When it comes to addressing students\u2019 mental health needs, schools often operate under the notion that there isn\u2019t a problem because they don\u2019t see one. But it\u2019s important to do the work instead of the clean up, said Ashanti Branch, the founder and executive director of the Oakland-based Ever Forward Club.<\/p>\n
But what educators need to realize is that, during virtual learning, there were students who spent 24 hours a day without love for an entire year \u2014 and some dealing with much worse.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know that teachers got a whole lot of specialized training \u2014 definitely not dealing with returning from a pandemic \u2014 because most of those teachers today, most of them never lived through one,\u201d Branch said. \u201cWe find that they\u2019re not getting the training, the support, the mental health and mental wellness care that they desperately need.\u201d<\/p>\n
The staffing shortage extends to mental health professionals<\/p>\n
As schools across the country face teacher shortages, those aren\u2019t the only positions that need to be filled. Even prior to the pandemic, school counselors and psychologists were hard to come by in majority non-White schools \u2014 especially Black mental health professionals.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are still suffering from the effects of not having enough adults in the room to take care of children,\u201d Francis said.<\/p>\n
Now, there are 5.4 million, or 12 percent, public school students attending districts that don\u2019t have psychologists and half a million, or 1 percent, in schools without counselors, according to an Education Week analysis. And, of course, the shortages continue to be felt in certain districts and schools more than others.<\/p>\n
The analysis broke it down further, finding that districts that have higher percentages of White students are more likely to meet the recommended mental health staff-to-student ratios. For example, in districts that were majority non-White, only 6 percent met the ratio for school psychologists, compared to more than 9 percent of majority-White districts. And, along those lines, 10 percent of majority non-White districts met the recommended counselor-to-student ratio, compared to 16 percent of majority-White districts.<\/p>\n
But throwing money at the problem won\u2019t solve it. It matters who the mental health professionals are and what their backgrounds are \u2014 especially whether their training focused on kids.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to increase our pipeline, we need to increase our workforce that focuses on children,\u201d Francis said. \u201cOtherwise, we\u2019ll just have a bunch of adults that were trained to work with other adults.\u201d<\/p>\n
What do we do?<\/p>\n
In California, there aren\u2019t any large-scale training efforts to help teachers better identify and address mental health problems in students. There was a push in many counties, Francis said, to train county workers, teachers, and staff on what emotional distress looks like through various programs, but it never reached all the schools in the state.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have never done a good job scaling anything, which means that only some communities have gotten something,\u201d Francis said. \u201cOftentimes, it was those communities who had the staff where the teachers and the advocates knew enough to ask for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
But part of the problem with additional training \u2014 or more events added to a tightly packed calendar \u2014 is it overwhelms teachers, who have their own mental health to address.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact of the matter is our adults aren\u2019t okay,\u201d Francis said. \u201cNot enough attention is being paid to that, and we\u2019ve kind of missed the mark, and we aren\u2019t recognizing it as much.\u201d<\/p>\n
But teachers are trying \u2014 both by seeking out information to better help their students and through new practices. One of the initiatives Beal introduced is the morning check-in. And it only takes a few minutes.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can notice if there\u2019s a difference based on how the student responded to that question,\u201d Beal said. \u201cThen you can look at your class and say she\u2019s not acting her normal self, she feels a little quiet, and you may want to give her the opportunity to go and talk to the counselor if she wants to.\u201d<\/p>\n
And Beal also helped initiate peer counselors, who were trained to help inform their fellow students about mental health and best practices. This, above all, gives Beal hope: This generation is willing to talk about mental health.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe culture is changing, as far as Black students,\u201d Beal said. \u201cWe just need that little bit of help and trust factors.\u201d<\/p>\n
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