Recent Student Suicides Indicates There's Much For Us and Parents to be Learning
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- City officials acknowledged this week an alarming trend among city public school students – an increase in suicides – and said the best way to help is to get all students back in school buildings, although there is not yet a plan to make that happen.
Five public school students have taken their lives so far this year, according to several reports. There were four during the 2019-2020 school year.
One of those five is Jasier Kelly, a 16-year-old Staten Islander who died by suicide on Feb. 4.
Jasier Kelly, 16, died by suicide on Feb. 4, according to his family. (Photo courtesy of Tyranna Harris)
Kelly’s family said he was a boy who “could brighten up a whole room by just smiling,” but the isolation of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic exacerbated his mental health issues, and not being able to see friends and family and attend school made it “hard for him to function.”
Social isolation caused by the pandemic can negatively impact the mental health of children, research shows, and experts suggest that disease control measures caused by the pandemic could exacerbate children’s cognitive struggles.
Through the first months of the coronavirus outbreak, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published data that indicated hospital emergency departments saw a rise in total visits from children with mental health needs.
Mayor Bill de Blasio emphasized the connection between school, in-person connections, and child mental health when asked about the increase in student suicides on the Brian Lehrer Show on Friday.
“I’m a parent and I, you know, I’m just thinking what a child must be going through, how much pain, how much confusion, how much fear leads to that moment, how many things that they need to express that aren’t being expressed because there’s no outlet, how much isolation that a child is feeling, how horrible and painful that is, and what it means in this moment, because kids have been cut off from what they need, what allows them to cope and have hope,” he said.
Anticipating the challenges with mental health, the Department of Education (DOE) launched Bridge to School this school year, a social and emotional curriculum that would help educators address the unique needs of their students brought on by the pandemic.
But even with the additional support, the suicide rate among students is “rapidly doubling,” said School Chancellor Richard Carranza at a recent town hall, Bklyner reported.
“The fact that these kids have gone through this crisis, the trauma they’ve felt, many kids have lost loved ones. Many kids are feeling really isolated in the absence of, you know, the regular rhythms of their life,” the mayor said when asked about the Chancellor’s recent remarks earlier in the week.
“And particularly the absence of school for some of them. This is why it’s imperative we bring back school as quickly as possible,” he said.
Public high school buildings have been closed in New York City since Nov. 18, when a rising COVID-19 positivity rate led de Blasio to suspend all in-person learning.
City elementary schools began full-time in-person instruction again in December, and middle school students will return to school buildings on Feb. 25, but neither the mayor or DOE have have detailed a plan for reopening public high schools.
In fact, many high school buildings across the city are being used as COVID-19 test and vaccination sites.
The mayor said he’s “hopeful” there will be an opt-in period later this school year, however, he appears more optimistic about the 2021-2022 school year, and has said he is confident that schools will open “at full strength” in the fall.
He acknowledged that reaching children and providing mental and emotional health services through the remote model is a challenge.
One in five children struggle with mental health and approximately one in five students don’t receive the support they need, according to the DOE.
“We’re trying to make sure that guidance counselors, social workers, principals, everyone’s thinking about if there’s a child with a mental health need that we’re speeding those services and supports to them right now. But it’s really – it’s not easy when kids aren’t in-person and that’s what’s causing so much of the problem here…” he said.
“It’s painful, but we really are trying to help every child. But the best thing we can do is just get more and more kids back in the school as quickly as possible.”
MENTAL HEALTH SCREENINGS TO BE OFFERED IN SCHOOLS
De Blasio has laid out a plan to begin offering in-school mental health screenings at some schools in the fall, and emphasized on Friday that he plans to ultimately make the offering available to all public school students.
“We’re going to do mental health screening for all the kids in New York City public schools when they come back in September,” de Blasio said.
“They will need more support,” he continued. Some of them will need a lot of support, will need to be, you know, have an opportunity to go into therapy, if that’s what’s right for them. And we have a plan to provide that for children who need it.”
With the fall school semester still more than seven months off, de Blasio called on New Yorkers to use a crisis hotline in the interim.
“If you know a child in crisis and you don’t know where to turn for mental health services, we can get that child help for free through 888-NYC-WELL,” he said.
Comments