Hit hardest by pandemic? The mental health of youth
“In East Tennessee the COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to mental health disorders in our children and teens or exacerbated the disorders they already had,” said Jennifer Phillips, director of Knox County Adult Clinic and Anderson County Mental Health Services for the Helen Ross McNabb Center.
In her virtual talk to the League of Women Voters of Oak Ridge, she added, “Depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder are the big three affecting our youth. Symptoms include loss of energy, loss of appetite, lack of motivation, pervasive worry, panic attacks, thoughts of harming oneself, feelings of isolation, crying spells and behavioral outbursts, especially in young children.”
The pandemic has adversely affected the mental health of Americans of all ages, but “our children and young adults have been hardest hit,” she remarked. “They have had the hardest time recovering and getting treatment. They are in the developmental stage and transitional stage of their lives, so the impact has been profound.
“Our children have been impacted by disruption of routines and increased isolation, coupled with mental health issues affecting their parents that contributed to increased substance abuse, domestic violence and child abuse in the home. Even now increases in inflation have created new barriers for that population.”
She noted that parents of children under age 18 represent 45% of the population in need of mental health treatment, according to a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation in 2021. She stated that the reasons for parents’ worsening mental health symptoms include the need to be a caregiver for a family member with COVID-19, loss of a loved one, their children’s social isolation and the need to stay home and step into the teacher role when their children were limited to online learning.
In her talk, Phillips gave some grim statistics but offered hope as she explained that the McNabb Center has a program to address the mental health needs of students struggling the most in Anderson County Schools. She supervises school-based behavioral therapists and liaisons that have been placed in Lenoir City and Oak Ridge Schools.
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, many children and teenagers suffered from trauma, abuse and neglect, loss of a loved one, anxiety about the virus, unpredictable routines and isolation from peers. Not surprisingly, she said, th nation experienced a 24% increase in mental health-emergency visits for children ages 5 to 11 and a 31% increase in mental health emergency visits for children ages 12 to 17.
In response to the pandemic, a higher percentage of teenage American girls than boys suffered from anxiety, depression and sleep issues, withdrew from their families and showed aggressive behavior.
Learning deficits
In addition to mental health issues, children and adolescents are struggling to recover from learning deficits.
“An estimated 1.6 billion children globally have suffered some form of educational loss because of the pandemic,” Phillips said. “It’s a big task to help the kids catch up to where they should be in their current stage of development. They hear about problems with family income and the health of family members. They feel angry, isolated and fearful for their future. They don’t have the tools to cope with their ill feelings.”
She added that tens of thousands of children and adolescents in the United States die from suicide every year.
Phillips said a higher proportion of young adults in the 18 to 24 age range reported symptoms of anxiety or depressive disorders during the COVID-19 pandemic than did older adults. About 56% of the younger group reported that experiencing university closures, loss of employment and loss of income contributed to an increase in depression and anxiety. About 25% reported misusing substances, and 26% reported having suicidal thinking in 2020, the highest of any other age group.
The Knoxville-based McNabb Center has been sought out to partner with schools in addressing mental disorders in students, Phillips said.
“We have placed a full-time therapist at the Oak Ridge Preschool and also at Willow Brook Elementary School. Our staff does classroom observations and teacher training, and it carries a caseload. We give behavioral health therapy to students in the school who are really struggling and don’t have the resources – money, transportation or a supportive family – to get treatment outside the school setting.
“Those staff members will also provide family therapy. If we recognize that some kids do not have adequate housing or that their basic needs are not met, we send someone to each child’s house to connect the family with community resources. We may help parents apply for better housing and look for jobs. We help people not in school overcome the barriers they face in getting access to medical and mental health care.”
Asked why McNabb Center is not involved with all Oak Ridge Schools, Phillips replied that the other schools within the city school system have not asked her office for assistance.
“Every school could get our support if it reaches out to us,” she said. “We continue our service for the kids we help who move from Willow Brook to Robertsville Middle School. Sometimes we are asked to train the teachers or to make a presentation to interested parents.”
Help with other issues
Phillips added that the McNabb Center’s Anderson County Outpatient Clinic has specialists who deal with domestic violence, sexual assault, alcohol and drug misuse, and placement in the workforce of people coping with both a mental health disorder and substance misuse. The clinic phone number is (865) 483-7743.
This article originally appeared on Oakridger: Hit hardest by pandemic? The mental health of youth
