Children and adolescents who endured the various disruptions and emotional and physical consequences of the pandemic are the future of our society. To help foster their well-being and our prosperity as a society, now is the time to act to protect the next generation. We have identified three primary objectives for pandemic recovery efforts aimed at improving child and youth mental health.
Take action now
We can’t wait to make services available to children who are suffering emotionally. We must act now to address a near doubling in mental health difficulties for children and youth during the pandemic. There is a need for government to develop urgent and strategic plans to address the mental health of youth and ensure the provision of accessible and equitable resources to support this initiative.
Return to routine
Decades of research on child development has shown that children thrive in the context of clear and consistent routines and structure. Many of the strategies used to reduce the spread of COVID-19 have forced children and adolescents to stay indoors, resulting in disrupted routines, increased sedentary time (for example, more screen time, less physical activity) and a reduction in structured activities such as sports, camps and extracurriculars.
Keeping schools open and maintaining family routines during the pandemic can protect children’s mental health. It will also be critical to support families by ensuring they have the material and psychological resources needed to help their children.
Mental health supports for children
To address this ongoing crisis, there is a need for equitable mental health services that are accessible to all children and youth. Investing in new models of care that can be adapted to increase scalability should be prioritized. This includes group and individual telemental health services (mental health services delivered by phone, texting or videoconference) and brief intervention approaches. Emerging research awaiting peer review suggests that single-session interventions for adolescent depression during Covid-19 can effectively reduce feelings of depression and hopelessness among youth. Increased access to, and availability of, mental health resources are critical.
Children and youth represent our largest investment in the future. The mental health implications of Covid-19 have been particularly dire. Although there have been some Covid-19 recovery initiatives targeted at this group, we need clear and actionable items to move forward with a mental health recovery plan that will address the increased severity of mental illness in children and adolescents and the rising need for services.
Ultimately, the policy choices we make now will have long-lasting effects on the prosperity of the next generation of youth. There is an urgent and rising demand for child and youth mental health services around the world. Parents, practitioners, allies and policy-makers need to come together to develop methods of mental health service delivery with widespread impact to meet this demand. The Conversation