On a recent field trip to the pool, kids attending daycare at the YMCA in La Crosse, Wisconsin, embraced the afternoon summer vibes. Some slid down the waterslide, while others swam and splashed each other.
But the mood turned sour when it came time to leave. One of the kids refused to get out of the pool, prompting a lifeguard to swoop in and pull her out. Then the situation escalated.
“She went into the lobby and started kicking over chairs and shoving tables and hitting staff,” said Shane Drey, senior school age director of La Crosse Area Family YMCA.
Since the pandemic, Drey has seen an uptick in children who have serious behavioral challenges. In the past, episodes like the pool incident were the exception at the YMCA’s school-age summer program, but this summer, she said, they’d become par for the course.
“We have a child exhibiting this behavior in at least half of our sites right now,” Drey said.
Two years into the pandemic and school-age children are still struggling to manage their emotions and adjust to school and out-of-school programs in La Crosse and across the country. These programs report an increase in troubling behavior and outbursts. The reasons are complex, but experts point to an increase in kids suffering from anxiety, depression and other emotional problems — whether that’s from having missed out on crucial social development years in school due to closures and remote learning or having lost a family member or caregiver to COVID.
Over the past decade, schools have been working to teach students how to better regulate their emotions and have positive interactions with others, in lessons often called social-emotional learning. But those lessons rarely spread to the summer and afterschool programs that play major roles in children’s lives – until now.
This year, recognizing the behavioral challenges and mental health concerns of many children, programs across the country have put into action a host of activities and strategies for de-escalating hairy situations and helping kids cope with difficult emotions.
The need for social-emotional learning and mental health education in summer and afterschool programs has always been there but it wasn’t until the pandemic that it landed on everyone’s radar, said Ross Szabo, a long-time youth mental health advocate and the wellness director at Geffen Academy at UCLA.
“Now you’re seeing all these forces — from political forces, parents, schools, nonprofit organizations — everyone, really, on the same page for the first time and trying to address the crisis,” Szabo said.
Youth mental health resources in demand
Leading the youth mental health charge in Wisconsin is Marshfield Clinic Health System, one of the largest health systems in the state. It is also the fiscal agent for the Afterschool Network and doles out grants to local afterschool programs.
Marshfield Clinic’s flagship mental health program is Life Tools, an 8-week curriculum for schools and afterschool programs that provides case management and professional counselors to help kids with their emotions and techniques to manage them. The curriculum, which is designed for afterschool programs to use alongside their regular activities, was developed by a psychologist at the clinic in 2016.
But not until the pandemic hit did the program really gain traction, driven largely by word of mouth among schools and out-of-school programs. Today, about 59 school districts use the program, up from 21 just 18 months ago.
“We’ve seen significant growth in the last two years,” said Jennifer Smith, program coordinator at Marshfield Clinic. “These [mental health] resources are increasingly in demand.”
Smith said she and others in the field love to talk about “behavioral forensics.” In layman’s terms, that means to investigate the underlying factors that may be contributing to a child’s behavior.
Smith said she meets a lot of afterschool providers through an online course she teaches who are struggling to get a grip on kids’ behaviors. In one example, a provider was frustrated over a group of boys in fifth and sixth grades who were constantly pushing and touching each other. Smith suggested looking at the situation through the behavioral forensics lens.
“It’s imperative to help the adults who are in spaces with kids — summer programs or afterschool spaces — to really be positive influences.”
Jennifer Smith, program coordinator at Marshfield Clinic
“We had some conversations about our human biological need for touch,” she said. Perhaps during the pandemic, when schools and programs were virtual, some of the kids didn’t have access to physical connections with other humans.
Now that they are in social situations, “the only way that they know how to do that is to be pushing each other and shoving each other,” she said.
Smith offered the afterschool provider examples of some games that would provide structured, controlled ways for kids to get the human touch connection, but in a productive way.
Taking care of youth workers
Hearing the struggles afterschool providers face, and their desperation for training and resources, Smith hosted a virtual learning series in May for youth mental health experts to discuss best practices, tools and strategies for intervening when interactions among kids get heated as well as the importance of supporting staff and management.
Smith said it’s hard for staff to be role models if they’re feeling burned out, stressed or depressed.
“It’s imperative to help the adults who are in spaces with kids — summer programs or afterschool spaces — to really be positive influences,” Smith said.
Working with kids is exhausting and if adults don’t take care of themselves, or if workplaces aren’t supportive, it’s easy for them to burn out.
After attending the presentations, Drey began making workplace changes at the YMCA to reduce burnout, primarily codifying time off as actually time off — no work calls, no work texts.
Training mental health leaders
With one of the largest AmeriCorps programs in the state, Marshfield Clinic trains young adults to be youth mental health leaders who then work alongside frontline staff at afterschool and summer programs. The AmeriCorps staff learn how to develop mental health lessons for kids and teach staff how to better deal with behavior challenges.
“No matter what you’re going through, it is always okay to take a break, to play with a fidget toy, to take a deep breath.”
Jamie Johnson, Americorps member and mental health educator
Jamie Johnson, 23, is an AmeriCorps member who completed the clinic’s mental health training and is now one of 80 members working full-time for afterschool and summer programs statewide. She works at one of 10 La Crosse YMCA locations on any given day, filling in when programs are short-staffed.
Johnson said she tries to read the dynamics of each group of kids and lead them through activities like team-building games, yoga or breathing exercises. Johnson also evaluates how program staff interact with kids and respond to behavior issues, and offers suggestions for improvement.
“Day after day, I’ve tried to preach coping skills,” Johnson said. “No matter what you’re going through, it is always okay to take a break, to play with a fidget toy, to take a deep breath. “
Tinley Fawver, 9, is a big fan of “Ms. Jamie,” as she’s known to kids. Tinley went each week to Johnson’s mindfulness club after school on Mondays at the YMCA.
When summer came and the club ended, Johnson gave Tinley a bag of pink beads and string to make keychains, which Tinley likes to rub and fidget with when agitated. And if her older sister makes her mad this summer, which of course is a given, Tinley can play with the glitter jar she made in the club.
Tinley shook the jar and watched the colorful specs of glitter dance in swirls of water.
“It makes me feel like all the bad thoughts are just sinking,” she said.
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Brian Rinker is a San Francisco-based freelance writer and journalist. He covers public health, child welfare, digital health, startups and venture capital. His work has been published by Kaiser Health News, Health Affairs, The Atlantic, Men’s Health and San Francisco Business Times. Brian received master’s degrees in journalism and public health from UC Berkeley.
