Rubric:

https://mpxfiles.mpxlive.com/Uploads/Files/live_2/pdk/4ffe7f99-69ab-4101-867e-710d2f4f1bd5.p
df?v=637642125207700000

PROMPT: The pandemic has had a great impact on students’ social and emotional health,
which is affecting their ability to learn. As a result of school closures and event cancellations,
students are showing signs of increased depression, anxiety, fear, abuse, and bullying. In
addition to the stress caused by school closings, many students have also had to cope with the
sickness or loss of one or more close family members or friends. In a 2020 survey conducted by
Active Minds, “Almost 75% of respondents reported their mental health has worsened,
worsened somewhat, or worsened significantly since the beginning of the pandemic.”
(https://www.activeminds.org/active-minds-student-mental-health-survey/)

What can and should schools do to help students struggling to cope with these issues?

Intro: Talking about the statistics of students who have mental health
● Have you ever had something extremely heavy on the weight of your back or on your
shoulders? Something so heavily that you feel like you will be inevitably crushed by it. I
mean bone-shattering crushed. Well, that's what it feels like to live with depression.
Something is pressed down into you, whether that be the absence of joy or the presence
of pain. Depression isn’t just being sad.
● Someone is looking at you! Look behind you! Look! Ohh, wait no one is there. Anxiety is
never stopping to breathe. Breathing is hard when one is always worrying. Consant
worrying that makes one ill.
● These are just two things that children my age are dealing with.
● Did you know that the American Psychological Association (APA) reports 81% of Gen Z
teens (ages 13–17) have experienced more intense stress during the COVID-19
pandemic.
● Let that number sink in.
● According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, emergency
department visits for suspected suicide attempts among adolescents jumped 31% in
2020.
● In February and March of 2020, emergency department visits for suspected suicide
attempts were 51% higher among girls aged 12–17 (in 2020)
● We asked if there had been any changes in their life due to the pandemic that created
stress and problems for them and whether they relied on tMHFA skills to deal with those
issues.
● Well over 50% reported that the pandemic and response has created problems. A little
more than 25% of students said they had experienced a “great deal” and 30% a
“moderate amount” of changes, as well as stress and problems. A subset reported a
“great deal” or “moderate” increase in depression [19% and 17%, respectively]. We saw
very large numbers report having changes in sleep and eating patterns.
● The survey carried out with 2,438 young people aged 13-25, between 26th January and
12th February 2021 shows:
 ● 75% of respondents agreed that they have found the current lockdown harder to cope
with than the previous ones including 44% who said it said it was much harder. (14%
said it was easier, 11% said it was the same)
● 67% believed that the pandemic will have a long-term negative effect on their mental
health. This includes young people who had been bereaved or undergone traumatic
experiences during the pandemic, who were concerned about whether friendships would
recover, or who were worried about the loss of education or their prospects of finding
work. (19% neither agreed nor disagreed, 14% disagreed)
● 79% of respondents agreed that their mental health would start to improve when most
restrictions were lifted, but some expressed caution about restrictions being lifted too
quickly and the prospect of future lockdowns.
● A 46-country study by Save the Children found that more than 8 in 10 children have
experienced increased negative feelings
● Similarly, a longitudinal study involving 442 last year high school in Greece by
Giannopoulou et al. (2021) showed an 15.3% increase in depression, 17% increase in
severe depression, 25.7% increase in anxiety, and 16.7% increase in severe anxiety
after just one month of lockdowns.
● Currently in todays society students are fueled by their devices. Social media and the
internet are an everyday occurrence. We open Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and Tik Tok
scrolling for hours at a time. Our young impressionable minds conumsing everything we
see. We see someone being better, pretty, over all just see people having their life
together and the spiral starts. Then that spiral is continued because school is hard.
Classes are hard. Everything feel like too much. Our brains can’t handle all the pressure
of figuring out who we are. I don’t even know what to eat for breakfast in the morning so
how am I supposed to know what I want to do with the rest of my life.
● Pressure is all consuming, mental health is all consuming, leaving the shell of the human
being that we are in its place.
● How can we fix this problem, well lets take a look and see what some school are doing
to make a change.

What Some Schools Are Doing About It:

● Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Virginia enacted
statutes this year and last that allow K-12 students to miss a certain number of school
days for mental health reasons.
● And Maryland is developing a school mental health response team to address the needs
of students who have experienced trauma during the pandemic and are stressed beyond
their ability to cope. The teams would quickly respond to local schools as needed.
● Georgia is directing schools to use federal dollars to train counselors, social workers and
nurses to identify students with substance use and mental health needs as they return to
the classroom, then refer them to community mental health and local substance use
providers.
● Helping schools provide safe and supportive environments—whether in person or
virtually—is critical to students’ wellbeing.
○ Linking students to mental health services.
 ○ Integrating social emotional learning.
○ Training staff.
○ Supporting staff mental health.
○ Reviewing discipline policies to ensure equity.
○ Building safe and supportive environments.

My Plan:
● My own concoction
● Pow wow moments → with students; so students can connect with students if they so
choose too
● Adding mental health into the curriculum
● Teachers, administrative, and any form of adult need to put themselves in the students'
shoes → it's hard being a teenager nowadays → social media has a huge effect → on
understanding students a bit more → LISTENING TO STUDENTS → Getting admin and
superintendents back into the classroom so they know where the funding needs to go
● Open communication
● Start using counselors as counselors → more counselors in schools → needs to be
more counselors in schools that are able to handle the more mental health issues
instead of academic ones → need ppl are able to actually take the time to listen to
students → More consolers → more opportunities to speak to ppl (to anyone) →
Specifically trained counselors more mental health
● Needs to be some form of student forum → where students can write in and
communicate the things they feel they need so the school can actively try and help them
● With this forum, it can create an open space for people
● Communication is key
● More emphasis on mental health in schools → adding mental health into the curriculum
→ destigmatizing having mental health not making it be this “big bad”
● Educating students on how to deal with mental health safely, showing more resources →
https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline
● Destigmatize time to prioritize mental health, specific times during the school time,
scheduled mental break, once a month mental health day → Protitizing mental health

Ending:
● I’m Jamie Hewett and it has been an absolute pleasure
● Thank YOU for listening, I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.

Presentation Powerpoint: EdRising Project

Sources Used
- https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feduc.2021.719539/full
- https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/314071#risk_factors
- https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/anxiety-an
d-panic-attacks/symptoms/#:~:text=feeling%20like%20you%20can't,angry%20or%20ups
et%20with%20you
- https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2021/11/08/covid-har
med-kids-mental-health-and-schools-are-feeling-it
- https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2021/teen-mental-health-during-covid-19
- https://www.youngminds.org.uk/about-us/reports-and-impact/coronavirus-impact-on-you
ng-people-with-mental-health-needs
- https://globalfundforchildren.org/news/the-moment-were-living-and-our-hope-for-the-futur
e/?gclid=Cj0KCQiAxc6PBhCEARIsAH8Hff0xZxmwTJAMZnPjcC76TLWTITDxizEn63Doz
PuGbRQryZj2S4K5bGIaAikfEALw_wcB
- https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/mental-health/index.htm