How a pandemic played mind games with some youth
By Mariah Stewart, shades Magazine
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Elizabeth Robbins of Kaysville, Utah, endured racist comments from peers and struggled to find a sense of belonging in her learning community.
She said a slow response from school faculty and staff caused her to have social troubles, to spiral emotionally and to experience a mental health crisis during the summer of 2021.
“I became really depressed and I don’t know if it was the COVID-19 [pandemic] that affected it the most or the fact that I was transitioning to a new school and was going through so many emotional and mental changes,” the Black LGBTQ Senior at Mountain High School said.
Elizabeth – who was adopted by a White Mormon family, but does not identify as Mormon – said it was during the pandemic she began disagreeing with her family’s beliefs for the first time; then her grades plunged, her work ethic declined and she eventually had to get professional treatment for the internal strife she was experiencing.
“I couldn’t relate to my family anymore,” the 17-year-old student said. “I felt very isolated. I felt like an outcast.”
Elizabeth is just one of thousands of minority students nationwide that are disproportionately impacted by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
An October 2022 survey from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found nearly 75% of 4,390 high school students polled experienced at least one adverse childhood experience during 2021. The negative experiences included physical and emotional abuse, sexual violence, food insecurity, cyber bullying, dating violence and/or the loss of a parent’s job during the pandemic.
Several factors have led Students of Color to be more vulnerable to pandemic fallout including a lack of mental health professionals in schools; suffering from anxiety and depression; experiencing the digital divide; and more, according to experts. shades Magazine recently interviewed mental health experts, education leaders and teenagers to better understand how students and their families across the country are grappling with the pandemic.
A growing crisis
In October 2021, just months after Elizabeth sought treatment for her mental health, a cohort of medical groups including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the Children’s Hospital Association declared a national state of emergency in children and adolescent mental health.
“This worsening crisis in child and adolescent mental health is inextricably tied to the stress brought on by COVID-19 and the ongoing struggle for racial justice and represents an acceleration of trends observed prior to 2020,” the cohort published in a 2021 press release.
In addition to exacerbated long-standing socioeconomic issues, experts say the pandemic also sparked new problems for Black and Brown adolescents such as adjustment disorders or the emotional/behavioral reaction to a stressful event or change, as defined by the Mayo Clinic.
“We missed two years of life and I don’t think people are really stopping to think about that,” Nia Jones, a licensed medical social worker, said. “We’ve seen that young people are experiencing a lot of social anxiety as a result of this. People are expecting to see an 18 year old in front of them and really what they’re experiencing is a 15- or 16-year-old child. Those two years make a very big difference.”
Jones serves as the youth and young adult director at the Black Mental Health Alliance – BMHA – a 40-year-old national organization dedicated to developing and sponsoring education programs and services to support mental health and wellbeing in the Black community. In Jones’ role, she works to curate events and services to address mental health for Black youth. One of BMHA’s signature events Jones helps lead is an annual, virtual, in-person/hybrid youth summit that focuses on how to engage young people in healing from things like long-standing trauma or everyday situations.
“So often we want young people to just start talking, to share and process,” Jones said. “And we don’t give them the tools to be able to do that. And so that is what our youth summit really focuses on.”
Jones said the pandemic has brought a heightened awareness to mental wellbeing, but the lack of service providers in schools creates a disparity for those who can get help.
“We have this wave of Black high schoolers, Black middle schoolers, Black college students who want help, but can’t get to somebody because the school social worker is up to their nose in IEP (Individualized Education Program) meetings that they can’t just stop and have a conversation a lot of times with the students at their school,” Jones explained.
The numbers game
In November 2022, dozens of K-12 students in Elizabeth and Newark, New Jersey, organized a protest demanding access to more mental health resources and professionals within their public schools, national nonprofit news outlet Chalkbeat reported. The students pointed to the high ratio of law enforcement officers present in schools compared to the number of counselors as being the major issue. Other stats that have contributed to their frustration include:
- A 2019 report from the American Civil Liberties Union shows that only Montana, New Hampshire and Vermont met the U.S. Education Department’s recommended 250:1 student to counselor ratio during 2015-2016 academic year.
- Only 2% of the approximate 41,000 psychiatrists in the U.S. are Black and only 4% of psychologists are Black, according to the American Psychiatric Association.
- The suicide death rate among Black youth has been found to be increasing faster than any other racial/ethnic group, according to the 2019 report from the Congressional Black Caucus Emergency Task Force on Black Youth Suicide and Mental Health.
Finding solutions
For Robbins, positive changes came once she found an allyship with another Black classmate and received support from a faculty member to start a club. The two students began a Black Student Union group at their high school during the last academic year and planned inclusive activities and discussions for students, faculty and staff to share their experiences; build connections; and worked to improve the school environment.
Like Elizabeth Robbins in Utah, Skye Alex Jackson, also encountered challenges as a Student of Color at her predominantly White high school during the pandemic.
“I felt like I was alone and didn’t have enough resources or mentors or other students that I could connect to in a space that was just for me and just for those students,” said the 19 year old, who founded the National Black Student Alliance – BSA – in 2020, during summer break from her boarding high school in Alexandria, Virginia.
“I started the National Black Student Alliance because I saw that there was a need for an online – and eventually in-person when it was possible – safe space for Black high school students, particularly at predominantly White institutions,” Jackson said. In 2020, along with three other students, she also helped launch the “Black at” social media movement where students of color shared their grievances at predominately white institutions.
The BSA is currently working with its first cohort of nine partner schools across the U.S. to bring inclusive change to campuses. Jackson said high school administrators and leaders can help Students of Color by creating safe spaces for them to feel heard. She added that through Zoom consultations with administrators, BSA leaders will discuss the school’s individual needs and goals for this school year and talk about things like parent nights, T-shirts, student supporters and how to ensure there’s representation in faculty and mentors.
To combat pandemic fallout trends, Jackson – who now attends Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island – recommends students first prioritize their mental and physical health.
“I always tell the students I work with how important it is to just take time for yourself, Jackson said. “As much as there is always going to be more work to be done, putting your mental and physical well-being first is what I really stress to the students that I work with and support.”
Mariah Stewart is a St. Louis-based journalist most recognized for her social justice coverage as the Ferguson Fellow for The Huffington Post and The St. Louis American. Stewart’s work has been published in multiple outlets including, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Crisis Magazine, St. Louis Public Radio and The Guardian. Most recently, she covered diversity and inclusion in higher education for INSIGHT Into Diversity. Stewart’s stories have been nominated for the ArchCity Defenders 2017 Excellence in Poverty Journalism Awards and the National Association of Black Journalists 2016 Salute to Excellence Awards. Additionally, Stewart co-produced the documentary films “Stranger Fruit” and “Finding Kendrick Johnson.”