It’s a national emergency: child and adolescent mental health.

The CDC reports that “in May 2020, emergency department visits for suspected suicide attempts began to increase among adolescents aged 12–17, especially girls.” And from February to March 2021,  visits for suspected suicide attempts were up 51% for adolescent girls and nearly 4% for boys compared with the same period in 2019.

And now, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy has released a strongly worded advisory entitled Protecting Youth Mental Health. Here’s one excerpt: “The pandemic era’s unfathomable number of deaths, pervasive sense of fear, economic instability, and forced physical distancing from loved ones, friends, and communities have exacerbated the unprecedented stresses young people already faced.”

So what is it about adolescents and the adolescent brain that has made them particularly vulnerable to pandemic stress. And what can we as teachers, parents, and caregivers do to support them?

Dr. Pamela Cantor has helped many young people surmount times of crisis . She practiced child and adolescent psychiatry for nearly two decades, specializing in trauma. She is also the Founder and Senior Science Advisor of Turnaround for Children, and is an author, and thought leader on the science of learning and development and human potential.

For more information, go to www.turnaroundusa.org/podcast.