Meeting the Mental Health Challenge in School and at Home

This article is part of our Learning special report about how the pandemic has continued to change how we approach education.

Last year, Leticia Guerrero-Castaneda’s 11-year-old son, Isaiah, was struggling. He was in the fifth grade when the pandemic shutdown occurred, and his reaction was to shut himself down; he became pathologically afraid of germs and contamination.

“He wouldn’t come out of his room and became afraid of touching anything,” Ms. Guerrero-Castaneda recalled.

That led to depression and anxiety, which affected not only Isaiah, but his family. By the time he returned to the classroom, Isaiah was in seventh grade and, like many students, was experiencing behavior problems.

Seeking help, Ms. Guerrero-Castaneda attended two workshops run by CHAMP (Community Health Action Mental Perseverance) last spring at Norma Cooms Elementary School in Pasadena, Calif. Parents there wrote narratives of their experiences related to events that impacted their families — like Covid and school shootings — and processed those experiences with other parents.

“We came to see we were not alone,” Ms. Guerrero-Castaneda said. “We learned different coping mechanisms and were told not to ignore our feelings or our kids’ feelings. Most of us were worried about how our children will be affected in the long run. And there was a sense of great comfort in being able to talk about it with other parents.”

CHAMP was created by three faculty members at Pacific Oaks College in Pasadena: Camille Huggins and Cassandra Peel, professors of social work, and Giovanni Hortua, an adjunct professor of history and Latin American studies. Dr. Huggins said the workshops provided parents a tool kit for coping with grief and loss, for themselves and their children.