One of the biggest components for children that attend school is the social interaction, and peer support that they can rely on a good friend and confidant.  Many of the children have just shifted to online channels and that might be enough but a simple high five, or hug can offer that personal touch to your interactions. 

This has been taken away from grades K to 12 and they will need time to adjust once things get back to normal or the new normal, what that looks like is uncertain and that alone can drive most adults into a panic, imagine what the children are feeling.  Another big component missing from children's mental health checklist is the daily interactions that the support staff, teachers and guidance councilors offer students.  Since the kids are operating from home if there was an issue with mental health or even issues they may be dealing with at home, there is no one to get that update on their security and safety. 

This is one of many challenges that the Rocky View School District is addressing in conjunction with educational needs.  Rachael Lehmann is a Child Development Advisor, and she knows that this is an important part of their developmental growth.

Lehmann talks about the dynamic of that healthy home school life, "In order to make sure we are meeting the mental health needs of our students and our families.  If we don't have mentally well families then we won't have mentally well children."  The family unit has been forced to operate without the daily guidance of the institution of school, some parents are even working through this so there is even less structure.  Lehmann has reached out to families that may want to reach out and have a singular chat or event a group chat with the whole family through Zoom.  

These are just temporary methods to do all they can to foster that healthy relationship with their teachers and students.  Lehmann talks about the role they play, "We are trying to meet the needs of the family and be specific to everybody and still be flexible with everybody as well. We are doing a lot of things like that to keep the basic connection, and that connection and relationship that a lot of our staff have with our students are what we are finding is the most important piece of keeping that mental health connection with everybody."

Lehmann's biggest goals normally are to support the social-emotional behavioral capacity of students in the school, but also to incorporate community support.  If there was a certain family that may have been going through a tough time financially and needed access to a food bank she could facilitate the connections she has established over the years at the school. 

Her next goal professionally is to create a channel to fish for students that may have run into hard times, but because of the social distancing she can't see them face to face and they might be falling through the cracks.  Lehmann has started a project to help those students, "One of my own professional goals in the next week or so is to have a blog on our website so that families can access all of that facts at their own leisure. In terms of support that are currently in place we do have things for those families that we know need the support, but it is all the other families that aren't on our radar that we might need to put more effort into."