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Spokesman-Review

With students in turmoil, U.S. teachers train in mental health

By Jocelyn Gecker

ASSOCIATED PRESS

SAN FRANCISCO – As Benito Luna-Herrera teaches seventh- grade social studies, he is on alert for signs of inner turmoil. And there is so much of it these days.

One of his 12-year-old students felt her world falling apart. Distance learning had upended her friendships. Things with her boyfriend were verging on violent. Her home life was stressful. “I’m just done with it,” the girl told Luna-Herrera, sharing a plan to kill herself.

Luna-Herrera is just one teacher, in one California middle school, but stories of students in distress are common around the country.

Since the pandemic started, experts have warned of a mental health crisis facing American children. That is now playing out at schools in the form of increased childhood depression, anxiety, panic attacks, eating disorders, fights and thoughts of suicide at alarming levels, according to interviews with teachers, education officials and mental health experts.

Luna-Herrera, who teaches in a high poverty area of the Mojave Desert, is among a small but growing number of California teachers to take a course called Youth Mental Health First Aid. It teaches adults how to spot warning signs of mental health risks and substance abuse in children.

“I don’t want to read about another teenager where there were warning signs and we looked the other way,” said Sen. Anthony Portantino, author of a bill that would require all California middle and high schools to train at least 75% of employees in behavioral health.

For children, the issues with distance learning were not just academic, said Sharon Hoover, co-director of the National Center for School Mental Health.

Child abuse and neglect increased during the pandemic, Hoover said. For children in troubled homes, distance learning meant they had no escape.

“We can’t assume that ‘OK we’re back in school, it’s been a few months and now everyone should be back to normal.’ That is not the case,” Hoover said.

Returning to school after months of isolation intensified anxiety for some children. Teachers say students have greater difficulty focusing, sitting still and many need to relearn how to socialize.

“I have never seen kids be so mean to each other in my life,” said Terrin Musbach, who trains teachers in mental health at the Del Norte Unified School District.

Since California began offering the Youth Mental Health First Aid course in 2014, more than 8,000 teachers, administrators and school staff members have been trained, said Monica Nepomuceno, who oversees mental health programming at the California Department of Education.

“Sometimes an adult can ask a question that causes more harm than good,” said Luna-Herrera, the social studies teacher at California City Middle School.

He took the course in spring 2021 and two weeks later put it to use. A student had failed to show up for online tutoring but he spotted her chatting online on the school’s distance learning platform. Luna reached out to her privately.

“I asked her if she was OK,” he said. The girl told Luna-Herrera about problems with friends, her boyfriend and problems at home.

The course teaches how to handle a crisis: Raise the alarm and get expert help. Do not leave a person contemplating suicide alone. As Luna-Herrera talked to the girl, he texted his superintendent, who got the principal on the line, they called 911 and police rushed to the home, where they spoke to the girl and her mother, who was startled.

“He absolutely saved that child’s life,” said Mojave Unified Superintendent Katherine Aguirre, who oversees about 3,000 students.

Mojave Unified School District Superintendent Katherine Aguirre, right, and Benito Luna-Herrera, a seventhgrade social studies teacher, meet with his students at California City Middle School in California City, Calif., on March 11. Luna-Herrera has put his mental health training to the test during the pandemic.

ASSOCIATED PRESS