Back to school this fall feels different. Lighter. Less burdensome than the past couple of years.
Yes, COVID is still present in our lives, still keeping people home, and sending others to hospital, or worse. But it doesn't wield the same oppressive fear over heading to class it has in recent history.
If anything, so many of us are holding out hope this will be the school year our kids and teachers are able to attend in person for the entire year.
The as yet untold mental-health impact on teachers, children, and the community of COVID fears, and the revolving door in and out of isolation many endured, is hopefully nearing its end.
The hope for all is that COVID's grasp will be less cloying, so that some semblance of normalcy can return for our kids, and the mountainous task of tending to the trauma they have experienced can truly begin.
As is evidenced in a new survey released by the Alberta Medical Association (conducted with ThinkHQ Public Affairs Inc.) in May, the pandemic's mental-health toll on children and teens across the province is significant.
So many kids are struggling. At alarming numbers.
Close to two-thirds of the 713 parents surveyed online said the mental health of at least one of their children has suffered since COVID began. (The poll is considered accurate plus or minus 3.7 per cent, 19 times out of 20.)
Fifty-eight per cent said their child is currently experiencing mental-health concerns.
One quarter described their child's mental well-being as "much worse."
Most concerning: half of parents with children under the age of six reported their child's mental health had deteriorated since COVID began. For children 15 and over, that number jumps to a whopping 77 per cent.
Also concerning are the 72 per cent of parents with a child facing a mental-health concern who rated the ability of Alberta's health-care system to meet their needs as "bad" or "very bad."
Alberta Children's Hospital in Calgary has seen double the admissions for suicide attempts since the COVID-19 pandemic began.
The state of mental-health emergency among the province's youth moved members of the Alberta Medical Association and the Alberta Psychiatric Association to call on the province in February for a significant increase in funding for and an overhaul of our mental-health care system, along with preventative supports in schools.
In the meantime, there is some relief in knowing that students and staff will connect socially on school grounds, eat with their peers, kids will play together on playgrounds, get involved in school sports and music, and all can move freely from class to class, unmasked, with fewer COVID worries.
Most heartening, perhaps, is that until such time as the health-care system's mental-health supports can catch up — and they must — our kids, teens, and teachers will be able to look upon each other's faces, easily recognize one another, and benefit from the warmth of facial expressions.
In-person contact — human connection — can be powerful in the most positive ways.
Editorials are the consensus view of the St. Albert Gazette’s editorial board.
