Providing Support for Students' Mental Health During the Pandemic

By Ava Hentz

Talon Staff

Along with mask mandates and distance learning, the COVID-19 pandemic introduced isolation and, as a result, the challenge of staying connected with others. The drastic shift from normalcy increased the need for emotional/social support, even after the students returned to Barrington High School this year.

“People were home a lot, and now we're back at high school,” explains Joanne Royley, BHS’s Director of Student Support, referring to the sudden shift in the social dynamic between learning remotely and going to school. “People are still having a difficult time.”

As a result of these challenges, the student support system has evolved to better fit student needs.

“Not necessarily I have seen more kids,” says Mrs. Royley, “but more what I’m seeing kids for has changed.”

“My favorite part of my job is still, obviously, talking to kids,” Mrs. Royley says. “As the last three to four years have gone by, I feel like I find myself going to more and more meetings and creating RULER lessons… my job has changed a little bit from what it used to be.”

RULER is a systemic approach to social-emotional learning developed at the Yale University Center for Emotional Intelligence. The acronym stands for Recognizing, Understanding, Labeling, Expressing and Regulating and the program “aims to infuse the principles of emotional intelligence into the immune system of preK to 12 schools, informing how leaders lead, teachers teach, students learn, and families support students,” according to the center’s website at https://ycei.org/ruler.

This year, RULER lessons have been implemented in weekly advisories on a rotating basis.

Sophomore Ashley Pippit agrees that the pandemic has “affected everyone one way or another.” Social anxiety is one of the largest repercussions of COVID, and has become a challenge for many students, according to Pippit..

“Social anxiety is like a little voice in your head that ridicules everything you do,” explains junior, Zoe Gerstenblatt. “This acts as a barrier for me to make connections with people as I become extremely self conscious.”

Mrs. Samantha Stebbene, a student counselor at BHS, explains that, “the district allowed us to use Zoom to help support students during the pandemic.” And the high school continues to use the platform to reach out to students still not comfortable to attend school, although Mrs. Stebben admits “it can be a challenge to find the right time to meet with our students.”

“Kids get really overwhelmed, and [have] come back to a full load of school,” adds Mrs. Royley, who admits she is being pulled in more different directions a little more than she used to be on a daily basis.

While counselors and student support personnel are working incredibly hard to help each student, there is no designated social worker at BHS, leaving counselors with the responsibility of providing both academic and emotional support which works better for some students than others.

“I mainly see counseling as a place to discuss academic issues more than personal ones,” admits Gerstenblatt. Still, she says, while guidance is a helpful resource, it can be difficult for some students to find a time to discuss both their academic and emotional well being.