—Robert Neubecker for Education Week

School counselors on what they need during this pandemic

By Mandy Savitz-Romer, Heather Rowan-Kenyon, Tara Nicola, & Laura Hecht September 16, 2020

As the global pandemic threatens students’ academic progress, recent reports have also raised alarms about students’ mental health. Fear, loss, and the anxiety brought on by uncertainty are raising already-high levels of trauma and stress among young people. 

It will be tempting for schools to direct resources and attention this fall to bolstering the instructional core, given well-founded fears of learning loss and the widening of academic inequities. But our research suggests that districts need to focus just as much on deploying staff and policies that promote students’ social and emotional development. School counselors have a critical but often overlooked role to play in meeting this urgent need. 

According to our survey of nearly 1,000 school counselors from across the country, these professionals faced significant challenges last spring as they sought to support students’ social-emotional, academic, and postsecondary development in a remote learning environment. Schools should now make it a priority to understand what went wrong in the spring, so they don’t repeat the same mistakes this fall.

First, we found that school counselors were not able to spend as much time as usual counseling students about social-emotional issues, career development, or postsecondary plans. This is especially troubling for a profession that was already stretched thin to begin with: Last year, all but three states significantly exceeded the recommended ratio of students-to-counselors. In our survey, 43 percent of counselors reported spending less time providing individual counseling than in their work pre-COVID-19, despite the stress and trauma caused by the pandemic.”While navigating personal stressors brought on by the pandemic, school counselors faced unique professional challenges as well.”

Instead, a large majority of the counselors—who regularly worked well beyond their usual hours—reported spending their time tracking down students with low attendance in remote learning and delivering social-service and technology information to families. These are worthwhile efforts, of course, but they limited counselors’ ability to check in with students, assess their well-being, and intervene when necessary.

Second, our results suggested that a lack of direction and leadership from school and district leaders complicated this shift in responsibilities. Approximately 55 percent of counselors surveyed reported not receiving clear directions about their expected role in a remote environment. One midsize, urban school district’s updated memorandum of understanding with the teachers’ union never even mentioned school counselors.

While school counselors appreciated ongoing communication from administration and district staff, counselors were rarely involved in planning for remote schooling. Despite their unique skills in supporting students, only 35 percent of counselors say they were asked to provide input about school contingency plans or how to maintain counseling programming. Counselors also reported that training for counselor-specific remote work was not available to them. This problem was especially acute in rural communities, where 1 in 3 counselors reported receiving no training.

Third, like all educators, school counselors struggled to adjust to remote schooling. While navigating personal stressors brought on by the pandemic, school counselors faced unique professional challenges as well. In addition to losing the valuable opportunity to connect with students in informal settings such as hallways and lunchrooms, many counselors received instructions from school leaders not to meet one-on-one with students, provide group or classroom instruction, or even use videoconferencing software because of concerns about meeting confidentiality requirements remotely.

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These findings highlight long-standing challenges facing the school counseling profession. For decades, school counselors have called on principals to provide better leadership to counseling programs. Such leadership is now essential. If schools are committed to healing students and supporting their engagement in academics amid a wave of national trauma, they must heed this call now more than ever. To support their efforts, we offer the following recommendations for school and district leaders:

1. Establish a clear plan for school counseling programming and communicate it widely. School and district leaders are often not familiar with counseling models or standards, so they need to take their lead from counselors. Strong administrators understand the assets and expertise of counselors and are careful not to misdirect their time toward tasks that don’t leverage their mental-health training. With counselors’ input, school and district leaders can prioritize the availability of counseling programs and services at the systems level. At a minimum, counselors can identify counseling-related policies and practices that transfer to a virtual or hybrid context. For example, school counselors can join morning meetings to connect with students, partner with teachers to integrate strategies for well-being into classes, and collaborate with other support staff to utilize screening tools to identify depression, trauma, and other signs of distress.

2. Build time for counseling into student schedules. Face-to-face time with students—either virtually or in person when it is safe to do so—is a precious commodity. School leaders will therefore need to be intentional about scheduling time for students to meet with counselors and for counselors to provide mental-health support to whole classes, grades, or schools. Consistent advisory blocks and office hours might offer structured times for students to reach out for additional support. School counselors around the country have set up Google Classrooms and Bitmoji offices to be added to district platforms.

3. Evenly distribute the responsibility of tracking down students. School leaders must avoid the temptation of assigning attendance and noncounseling duties to counselors simply because they are not responsible for a classroom of students. Pulling school counselors away from checking in with students, delivering resources for managing anxiety, and supporting postsecondary planning will leave some students vulnerable to further disengagement.

4. Ask counselors if and how they need support and training to use virtual platforms to provide counseling. In our survey, many school counselors reported having to use their personal phones to call students. Often, parents and students didn’t answer those calls, which appear as if they come from unknown numbers. Access to a school phone, Google Voice number, or other platforms to communicate with students will enable counselors to conduct confidential or sensitive conversations with students. School counselors also need different kinds of training from what is offered to teachers. Training on virtual platforms, strategies that support telecounseling, and legal and ethical considerations are especially in demand. As the college-admission process continues to evolve during the pandemic, school counselors will also benefit from training on policies and practices that have been updated during the pandemic.

While today’s educational context is defined by uncertainty, one thing is for certain: As students return to Zoom rooms or school buildings, they are hurting. We have professionals who are trained and ready to help them heal and develop the social and emotional skills to cope with their current reality. Let’s be sure to take counselors into account in our planning this semester. Our students and teachers are going to need them.

Mandy Savitz-Romer is the Nancy Pforzheimer Aronson Senior Lecturer in Human Development and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Heather Rowan-Kenyon is an associate professor of education leadership and higher education at the Boston College Lynch School of Education and Human Development. Tara Nicola is a doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Laura Hecht is a research manager at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. They are the authors of the recently released report “Expanding Support Beyond the Virtual Classroom: Lessons and Recommendations From School Counselors During the COVID-19 Crisis.”

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Vol. 40, Issue 05, Page 24Published in Print: September 16, 2020, as How Ready Are We to Support Kids?RELATED STORIES

• “Triaging for Trauma During COVID-19,” September 3, 2020.
• “As Schools Stay Closed and Student Morale Slumps, Educators Worry About Mental Health,” (Rules for Engagement) April 21, 2020.
• “The Nation’s Top School Counselor Is Slashing Discipline Disparities. Here’s How,” (Rules for Engagement) March 10, 2020.

RELATED OPINION

• “School Counselors Support Students. Are We Supporting Them?,”October 23, 2019.
• “The Troubling Student-to-Counselor Ratio That Doesn’t Add Up,” August 14, 2018.

Mental health issues affect one in four people. This could range from stress, anxiety, and depression, to severe mental health issues such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or borderline personality disorder. 

Often, it can be hard to understand the cause of these mental health problems. They may be triggered by something that has gone on in your life such as the loss of a loved one, or a big change such as moving to a new city, or a change in career. Whatever the cause, it is essential that you practice self-care. 

But what can you do to treat your mental health problems? 

Here are some of the steps you should take if you are experiencing any mental health difficulties in your life. 

Speak To Your Doctor 

If you are struggling with stress, anxiety, or depression in your life, then you should speak with your doctor at the earliest possible opportunity. Your doctor should talk you through what is happening in your life in order to understand whether you should be treated with self-care,

antidepressant medication, or whether you would be a suitable candidate for talking therapy such as cognitive behavior therapy. 

Speak To A Counselor 

If you are able to speak with a counselor, do so. You may be able to get referred to one by your doctor. If not, there are plenty of specialist counselors that will be able to take you on. 

Different counselors and therapists will have their own approaches to dealing with mental health issues such as depression and anxiety. Make sure that you are happy with the counselor’s approach before you commit to a course of sessions with them. 

Use CBD And Other Alternative Treatments

One of the areas that there is growing research into is the use of alternative treatments such as CBD. CBD comes from the same plant as cannabis except it doesn’t have any of the psychoactive ingredients as cannabis does. It just relaxes you and relieves symptoms of stress and anxiety. 

Another alternative treatment option may be psychedelics. You can read more about this at psychedelicspotlight.com. 

Eat Well

There is a lot that can be said about the way that you eat. By making sure that you are eating a balanced diet, you will be able to help to give yourself the energy that you need to keep going. 

To fight off stress and depression with your diet you should look at getting your starch fix with whole grains and beans. You should be sure to eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables. Instead of eating red meats, you should eat fatty fish like salmon or tuna. Finally, add in healthy fats, such as raw nuts and olive oil.

Exercise 

Exercising is a great way of clearing your head. It gives you endorphins which is a feel-good hormone that will balance out the stress hormones that your body will naturally be producing. 

Start small. Even going for a short walk will be very helpful. 

This is a collaborative post.

In Health,

Melinda

Analysis by Lisa Respers France, CNN

Friday, September 18th 2020, 9:05 AM

I’m not asking you to feel sorry for Kanye West.

The rapper/designer/provocateur may have earned as many critics over the course of his career as he has fans. But West’s mental health, which he has been open about, should be observed with sensitivity.

His recent interview with Forbes, concerning tweets and a press conference in which he made inaccurate statements about Harriet Tubman have raised alarms about his current well-being.

His wife, Kim Kardashian West, appealed to the better nature of the public last week with a plea for compassion for her husband, who she acknowledged has bipolar disorder.

“Anyone who has this or has a loved one in their life who does, knows how incredibly complicated and painful it is to understand,” she wrote in a note posted on her Instagram stories. “I’ve never spoken publicly about how this has affected us at home because I am very protective of our children and Kanye’s right to privacy when it comes to his health. But today, I feel like I should comment on it because of the stigma and misconceptions about mental health.”

In terms of the spectacle of it all, we have been here before with Ye. But he’s not the only celebrity who has confronted such challenges in the fishbowl that is the entertainment industry:

Jenifer Lewis: In a 2018 interview with CNN, the “Black-ish” star spoke about West’s much-reported meeting with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office.

Lewis acknowledged knowing full well what living with bipolar disorder can feel like in the public glare.

She was first diagnosed with it in the 1990s and wrote about her struggles with mental illness in her memoir, “The Mother of Black Hollywood.”

Lewis wept with concern for West at the time.

“Part of the disorder is not wanting to tame the mania,” she told me. “The high is so high and it feels great, but it’s dangerous. It’s so dangerous.”

She and I discussed the need to remove stigma surrounding mental illness — especially in the Black community.

“I cannot say enough how dangerous this disease is,” Lewis said. “And it is a disease. People need to start treating it like a disease like they do cancer, not as something to point at and laugh.”

Britney Spears: West has indeed been treated as a joke by many. Much like another celebrity whose mental health has been back in the headlines.

Britney Spears’ younger sister, Jamie Lynn Spears, weighed in last week after singer Halsey posted a series of tweets about mental illness.

“No jokes right now. I have dedicated my career to offering education and insight about bipolar disorder and I’m so disturbed by what I’m seeing,” Halsey wrote. “Personal opinions about someone aside, a manic episode isnt a joke. If you can’t offer understanding or sympathy, offer your silence.”

Jamie Lynn Spears offered her perspective.

“If you deal with mental illness or care for someone dealing with mental illness, then you know how important it is to respect the situation with privacy for the person, and the family trying to protect their loved ones, no matter how it may appear to the public, and as the public we must learn to do the same,” Spears reportedly wrote on Instagram in a since-deleted post.

She went on to defend her older sister after a commenter implored her to “clarify assumptions” about Britney Spears’ mental state.

“I would never speak our just to clarify things to the public, when the person it pertains to does not want that to happen,” Spears wrote. “I’d rather take all the hate, [than] speak about someone else’s personal matter, that they want to be kept private.”

Britney Spears has been subjected to tabloid fodder about her health since 2007, when she was hospitalized for mental health treatment and her father was granted conservatorship over her affairs.

The #FreeBritney hashtag gained traction from those who want that conservatorship to end.

Spears posted on Instagram last year to let her followers know, “All is well.”

Still, the #FreeBritney campaign has continued — and this month intensified due to a pending legal matter regarding the conservatorship — as her health gets picked apart by the public.

Tamar Braxton: As was the case when Braxton, who stars on the reality series “Braxton Family Values,” was reportedly hospitalized last week.

“This is an extremely difficult time for Tamar and her family as she navigates professional and personal struggles including her battle with depression,” Braxton’s boyfriend, David Adefeso, said in a statement to People.

“Tamar is currently receiving the best available medical attention to address those struggles and strengthen her mental health, and her family and I will remain by her side throughout her treatment,” he went on to say in the statement. “Mental health is a common issue, affecting 1 in 5 Americans.”

During this time of the pandemic, those numbers could increase with so many of us stressed, anxious and worried for the future.

Those in the public eye who are challenged with mental health issues should evoke our empathy and serve as a reminder to reach out for help if needed.

CNN has contacted reps for all three celebs for comment but has not yet received responses.

Read here for some of the best ways to take care of your mental health during the Covid crisis.

By Celebretainment

Sep 16, 2020

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Lady Gaga’s personal trauma influenced the book she is penning with her mother.

The ‘Rain On Me’ hitmaker and her mum, Cynthia Germanotta, have worked together on ‘Channel Kindness’ – which is a collection of 51 stories of kindness from young people across the world – and the pair revealed the idea for the book stemmed from the singer’s experience with mental health problems at school.

Gaga told PEOPLE magazine: “I didn’t know how to stand up for myself without feeling embarrassed.”

Cynthia admitted she feels “horrible” that she wasn’t able to support her daughter, and blames generational differences for her lack of communication at the time.

She explained: “There was a shame of sharing some of this with me. And I feel horrible about that.

“I was raised differently, where you just have to be tough and not talk about your emotions. I didn’t always understand the difference between normal biological teenage development and a real problem.”

Gaga hopes that the book can encourage “resilience” in younger people suffering mental health problems and help develop an understanding, just as she has with her mother.

The 34-year-old singer – whose real name is Stefani Germanotta – said: “There are things that create highways from heart to heart, where we can hold compassion and empathy, where we can celebrate everybody’s resilience.

“When I was younger and had mental issues, my mom didn’t know how to communicate with me about it. We’ve found a way to channel kindness into our lives in a way that’s also healed our relationship.”

Gaga added: “I’m just really grateful that my mom holds space for me to be able to talk about how I feel. And because of that, we have a very healthy relationship that is beautiful.”

HUFFPOST

Catherine Pearson

09/04/2020 11:31am EDT

Spend at least five minutes a day, every single day, hanging out with them and doing whatever they want.

Kids might find it more difficult to cope with the pandemic. Here’s how parents can help them.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit this past spring, billions of children around the globe were abruptly sent home from school — an anchor in so many ways. Kids have been cut off from friends and loved ones, and yanked away from daily activities and passions. Many have watched their loved ones get sick or have come down with the virus themselves. It has been … a lot. 

Now, as another unprecedented academic year swings into high gear, children are facing more of the same “new normal” that no one asked for.

“We don’t know how long we’re going to be living in this very strange period. For some kids, that mean that they’ve adjusted and things are a little bit easier to manage,” said Kimberly Canter, a child psychologist at Nemours Children’s Health System. “For other kids, that just means this gets harder and harder every day.”

HuffPost Parents spoke to several experts about simple, concrete ways we can help support our children during this upcoming school year. Here’s what they had to say: 

1. Regularly check in with them about what they think is happening with COVID-19. 

Talking to your child about what they know (or believe they know) about the pandemic is a crucial first step to understanding where they’re at emotionally, said Canter, who developed an online intervention to help kids struggling with COVID-19 stress. (The intervention is currently available to Nemours patients only, but she shared some of the broader concepts below.)

You’re looking to understand their specific concerns, she said.

“Are there things they are hearing that are frightening them that are not true?” she asked. “Are there things they are hearing that are frightening them that are true? And how can we address that?”

If your child brings up something you don’t have an answer to, or there’s no answer to, be honest. Tell them you’ll seek out accurate information together, and reassure them that they’re not facing this alone.

Parents should also pay attention to any physical, emotional or social changes they notice in their children, said Ron Stolberg, a licensed child psychologist and professor at Alliant International University.

“Typical things to look for are significant weight gain or weight loss not related to normal development, rejecting long-standing friends, major social withdrawal, and with teens, we also add unaccounted-for spending,” Stolberg said.

Your check-ins can be brief, but they should be consistent. Parents may have done this more at the start of the pandemic, when everything was strange and new. Don’t let up now.

2. Help them identify their emotions. 

Emotional intelligence is a learned skill that is rooted in a person’s ability to identify what they are feeling. Parents can help their children do that, Canter said. It’s really about noticing their feelings and learning how to name them.

This can start even if kids are young. Simple mood meters — red for angry, blue for sad, green for calm and yellow for happy — can help young kiddos track where they are and give voice to those feelings.

If your child brings up something you don’t have an answer to, or there’s no answer to, be honest. Tell them you’ll seek out accurate information together, and reassure them that they’re not facing this alone.

Parents should also pay attention to any physical, emotional or social changes they notice in their children, said Ron Stolberg, a licensed child psychologist and professor at Alliant International University.

“Typical things to look for are significant weight gain or weight loss not related to normal development, rejecting long-standing friends, major social withdrawal, and with teens, we also add unaccounted-for spending,” Stolberg said.

Your check-ins can be brief, but they should be consistent. Parents may have done this more at the start of the pandemic, when everything was strange and new. Don’t let up now.

Your check-ins can be brief, but they should be consistent. Parents may have done this more at the start of the pandemic, when everything was strange and new. Don’t let up now.

3. Build trust with their teachers.

Even if you live in an area where your child is in the classroom five days a week, this is an academic year like no other. One simple way to emotionally support your child — and your child’s teacher — is to help them feel “safe and connected to their school communities,” said Jeanne Huybrechts, chief academic officer at Stratford School, a network of private schools in California. That is true whether classes are in person, hybrid or starting the year off remotely.

“Reach out to your child’s teacher and introduce yourself and your family,” Huybrechts said. “Share family stories, values, your family’s living situation this fall, your child’s feelings about the return to school.” 

More than ever this year, open communication with your child’s teachers is essential.

4. For at least five minutes a day, hang out with them however they want. 

Parents sometimes hate to hear this tip because at the end of a long, exhausting day, many parents just (understandably) want to collapse, said Jill Ehrenreich-May, a psychologist and director of the Child and Adolescent Mood and Anxiety Program at the University of Miami.

But she recommends taking at least five minutes a day, every day, to just hang out together with the kids.

“Do something — not on screens — that your child wants to do with you,” Ehrenreich-May said. Follow their lead, and really try to connect through joy. They need it.

5. Remind them of what they can control. 

Many children are struggling under the weight of so many unknowns. We don’t know when school will be “normal” again. We don’t know when they’ll be able to freely hug grandparents or friends. We don’t know if they’ll get sick, or if we will get sick — and how serious it might be. That’s difficult for anyone to deal with, particularly kids. 

Parents can help by focusing them on what they can control right now.

“You might not be able to control if there’s a vaccine, but you can control things like washing your hands and wearing a mask,” Canter said. Similarly, kids may not be able to control when, say, soccer starts up again, but they can schedule Zoom hangouts with their teammates. And so on.

And here is something parents can control, to a certain extent: They can model the type of resiliency and self-care they hope to see in their children. That means parents need to find ways to take care of themselves.

“If I expect them to be calm and handle this really not normal situation, well, I probably need to express my own emotions appropriately,” Ehrenreich-May said.

Stolberg agreed, suggesting that parents follow a healthy sleep routine, eat nutritious food, avoid caffeine and alcohol, exercise outside if it’s safe to do so and stay connected to people, even if it’s digitally. He also recommended mindfulness exercises, such as breathing, meditation and yoga.

“You cannot be your best parent if you are not healthy and mentally prepared for the job,” he said.

At the end of the day, it’s not about pretending everything is totally OK. It’s about modeling emotional intelligence yourself and trying to show your kiddo how to live with uncertainty, while also trying to make the best of this unprecedented time.