Teens

Jewish Atlanta is responding to the mental health fallout of the pandemic on today’s youth, from specialized services and counselors to programs to help parents and camps.

 

Annie Fortnow, said helping parents “ultimately supports the family unit.”

Like the grieving period following a death, when the mourner is expected to eventually return to full engagement in life again, today’s youth are struggling to cope after a pandemic that left them socially isolated, seriously dependent on technology, and with tremendous emotional scars from the traumatic change and loss.

For many young people, the pandemic hit at a time in their lives when so much rides on identity and social connection, leading to significant psychological and emotional challenges, as seen in new community programs in Jewish Atlanta focused on mental health.

With May being national Mental Health Awareness Month, the AJT spoke with Jewish Atlanta’s community leaders and those who work with youth about how the psychological and emotional needs of children post-COVID are being met and how to address the ripple effects expected to continue for some time.

The community’s response to the pandemic has evolved with its growing mental health needs, according to Rich Walter, vice president of program and grant making for the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta. At the start of the pandemic, the community response focused on funding to meet immediate needs, including food, health and safety, and making sure Jewish organizations were financially stable, with broad strokes in terms of mental health needs, Walter said. More recently, the community’s attention has shifted to mental health as more community members sought help, he said. “A large percentage allocated from the [COVID-19] emergency fund is dedicated to mental health. … As the pandemic lags on more and more, the mental health challenge comes to the forefront.”

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Percent change from January-November 2019 to January-November 2020 in mental health claim lines and all medical claim lines. Ages 13 to 18
Source: FAIR Health: “The Impact of COVID-19 on Pediatric Mental Health.”

Percent change from January-November 2019 to January-November 2020 in mental health claim lines and all medical claim lines. Ages 19 to 22

Source: FAIR Health: “The Impact of COVID-19 on Pediatric Mental Health

The COVID-19 Emergency Response Fund, announced in April 2020, raised $4.3 million for relief efforts with $3.4 million in grants allocated so far, according to the Federation website.

Earlier this year, the Federation conducted a mental health community survey with Jewish Family & Career Services to assess the needs and what the next action steps should be to address those needs. A total of 515 respondents were polled about stress, coping strategies and what programs they wished existed. The Federation will analyze the results over the next few months “to craft a response and identify the right partners and how to move forward,” Walter said.

Among the findings, the youngest age groups, including those under 25, experienced the most stress across all stress factors. The top stressor of the under-25 set was self-care, 64 percent, followed by isolation, 61 percent, and a high-risk family member, 54 percent.

Top resources requested: activities they can do as a family, virtual exercise classes, and support for virtual learning.

The takeaway from the survey, “Supporting Self Care to Promote Mental Health Resilience” was that even though it looks like the community is reentering life as before the pandemic, many are dealing with trauma and loss, Walter said. “People may have been trying to cope through self-help mechanisms, but as long as this goes on, the challenges become more astute in the community. We try to predict what will happen and direct resources to experts who are able to deal with it.” He said the community has definitely seen an uptick in clinical requests in the last few months.

Meanwhile, some of the newest community initiatives involving mental health include:

Working with camps: JF&CS will connect with Jewish camps to meet mental health needs as they arise over the summer, Walter said.

Synagogue outreach: A $25,000 emergency fund grant JF&CS received last year was renewed to continue to fund synagogue outreach, as some of the needs of the community come through the synagogues, not directly to social service agencies, he said.

Hiring more clinicians: Another $75,000 emergency fund grant will help JF&CS hire more clinicians to meet the backlog of those seeking clinical services, Walter said.

Helping teen parents: JumpSpark teen engagement program offered six sessions with a facilitator called the PhD in Parenting April 14 to May 21, providing parent education for raising tweens and teens in today’s world. It offered parents tools and strategies for identifying mental health challenges and teaching coping skills.

“The relationship between parents and teens is so essential,” said Annie Fortnow, JumpSpark engagement manager. “We feel if we support parents’ mental health, it ultimately supports the family unit.”

Paul Root Wolpe said some kids haven’t been around their peers because of the pandemic.

Another program JumpSpark offers for parents of teens is Project Launch, which began May 2 and will run through June 6. It helps parents of high schoolers “launch their seniors to the next step, whether that be college or a gap year,” Fortnow said. The program will help parents build resilience and form small supportive community groups in the fall in partnership with the Federation and area synagogues, she said.

Peer support: JumpSpark also is trying to increase its “community within a community,” Fortnow said. “We need to double down on teen mental health and resiliency and prioritize relationships teens have with each other.”

For instance, JumpSpark is piloting a new Jewish teen boys’ program in which they mentor each other, she said.

For Paul Root Wolpe, director of the Center for Ethics at Emory University, the community priorities should be:

1 – Sensitivity and understanding that youth are still grieving

They may ask: “Why does it have to be my senior year? Why do I have to miss out on parties? These are personal losses they never really get back. People are sad about it. It leads to a greater increase in depression in youth, a spike in suicides.

“We lost a half-million people.,” he said. Some of the students may have lost peers, grandparents, siblings or others. “It’s a time of deep loss. They are grieving not just lost opportunities, but lost people.” And grief counselors may discover the immediacy of those losses may not be fully realized until the students return to their typical routines, he said.

2 – Recognizing that social interactions may be different post-pandemic

“One of the real challenges of the very young, people under 5, is that they had very little social contact” during the pandemic, Wolpe said. “There are 2- to 3-year- olds who never, ever played with other children,” Wolpe explained. “Or even if they are just at the beginning of school, being in the presence of others … sharing, and controlling your anger, you don’t learn on Zoom.”

Educators will need to have “a little more understanding and tolerance, even among kids who should know better” in terms of appropriate behavior.

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Jaime Stepansky believes social media can be used to promote mental health.

For older students, being in the presence of a potential romantic partner “is different than interactions on Zoom.” Technology may have enhanced their verbal negotiations, but it may impair their understanding of normal body cues, body language and inappropriate touching, Wolpe said.

Jaime Stepansky, a JF&CS child adolescent therapist, believes Jewish Atlanta’s adults should:

1 – Validate the struggles of teens to develop their own identities
For some, the limited in-person socializing last year may have increased their social anxiety, Stepansky added.

Youth “try to differentiate their identities through social responses. They are constantly navigating the waters” to determine how they are unique and how they fit in, she said. “Having young people at home with their parents so much may have thwarted that a little. … Parents inform them the direction they want them to go but they really need to find their own way. It’s like parents give them a MapQuest and they say, ‘No thanks. I’ll use my iPhone to get there.’”

2 – Understand the impact of technology as an addiction

During the pandemic, Stepansky found that many parents loosened their restrictions on their kids’ technology time. Students “get off Zoom and then they get on their own devices. At school at least they would police and monitor it.”

Stepansky said eight to 16 hours a day of technology use is average for teens she counsels. “It takes them two to four hours of social media or TV on their phone to fall asleep at night.” When she asks about supplements such as melatonin, they say they don’t want to get addicted. “It’s creating a kind of inability to sit with just thoughts and feelings. We were never meant for our attention to be split in so many ways. It’s the antithesis of healthy engagement.”

Youth “need to feel engaged and that they matter” and technology offers that, Stepanksy said. Like alcohol or drugs, it also numbs from boredom, isolation, grief, the change in life, and the lack of control, she said.

Because technology isn’t going away any time soon, Stepansky believes the best method to curb its overuse is through a harm-reduction model and an “if you can’t beat them, join them” response. “What can we do to reach them through technology that would be more beneficial to mental health?”

Her solutions include:

• Using social platforms such as TikTok with entertaining videos to teach teens about mental health. Teens can also make TikTok projects around mental health, she said. JF&CS also has an Instagram, @jfcsclinical, and is presenting “Real Talk” June 10, including teen mental health post-pandemic.
• Encouraging technology use in the home or in social settings be reduced. Set boundaries. Sit and talk, be present and engaged, not dividing attention between interactions and technology. Parents should model this behavior too.

Rich Walter said Federation polled the community about their mental health wish list.

3 – Provide more camp and camp-like activities that are more accessible and affordable.

Stepansky believes camps can bridge the socialization void of the pandemic before students return to the classroom full-time next fall.

“The first couple of days of camp is a detox from technology.” It allows children to engage with others, explore their interests, “be themselves. It strips away the social pressures of school and regular life.”

She said she expects there may be many calls home this summer, but children will be able to work through their anxiety before returning to the physical classroom and in-person socialization.

Not everyone can afford summer camp, so she also encourages other camp-like activities, such as outdoor movies or team building. “If you show a movie, every kid will be on their phone, but if you remove phones or engage young people in playing a game … they’ll talk to each other.”

4 – Consider modifying the school day to allow for more downtime

“Schools realized [during COVID] they could modify the schedule” of school without setbacks. For instance, some schools didn’t have classes on Wednesdays so students could catch up on schoolwork and enjoy a break from virtual classes. Some Jewish schools reduced hours, Stepansky said. Years before schools thought they had to fit more in the day, but COVID taught them otherwise.

The children on sports leagues found that even an hour a week outside to practice during COVID was exhilarating.

“I have bunch of kids who are seniors at Dunwoody [High School]. During senior week, they had to go to school and be outside. They said it was their best week in months. There was free food. They could grab food and see their friends. Sometimes we overthink things. … Give them food and they will come.”

What the Future Holds

In September, the Federation’s Atlanta Jewish Foundation began a series of scenario-planning sessions with 150 Jewish professionals and lay leaders to determine the long-term needs of the community as a result of the pandemic, including in the area of mental health. A report on the findings and funding options aren’t expected for at least two months, said Jori Mendel, the Foundation’s deputy director.

Walter said the Federation intentionally held money back from “the community funds to meet the needs into the next year as we begin to emerge out of this.” Increased staffing to deal with mental health is among the priorities. Engaging in the “new normal” may have to change, he said. For instance, programming may involve neighborhood groups or smaller initiatives.

While traumatic in the short term, the jury is still out on the long-term mental health implications of the pandemic on youth, said Wolpe, the Emory ethicist. “I don’t think in 10 to 15 years, there’ll be a significant difference between 2- to 3-years-olds who went through COVID and ones who did not.” Time will tell, he said. “We are going to see the influence a few years into the future.”

This article was originally published in the Atlanta Jewish Times.

For more information, visit The Blue Dove Foundation https://thebluedovefoundation.org, JF&CS Clinical Services, www.jfcsatl.org/clinical, or the CDC’s resource guide, https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/parental-resource-kit/index.html

‘Who Knows One?’ sees its post-pandemic life in fundraising — and maybe matchmaking

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The pandemic’s restrictions on social life have inspired new ways of connecting, from virtual birthday parties to Zoom speed-dating to digital simchas. In the Jewish community, they’ve given rise to a gamified version of “Jewish geography,” a favorite pastime of youth group alums, campers and others who have been active in Jewish social circles. Created by Micah Hart, “Who Knows One?” is named for the Passover Seder song of the same name, and was inspired by an ESPN show Hart watched in which the hosts competed to see who could get the most famous person to join a Zoom call. “It just sort of dawned on me. We were all at home, we had nothing else to do,” he told eJewishPhilanthropy.  

A resident of Atlanta, Hart is the son of Macy Hart, a longtime director of the Henry S. Jacobs Camp, a Union for Reform Judaism camp in Utica, Miss., and the founder of the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute for Southern Jewish Life. He had lost his job as head of social media for the restaurant franchise Buffalo Wild Wings early in the pandemic, and as a lifelong fan of Jewish geography, in which at least two people identify who they know in common, he realized that it could be enjoyable as a filmed contest. He also felt he had the skills to try to make it happen due to his professional background as a creator of digital content. Now, “Who Knows One?” is Hart’s full time job.

The show, which runs on Wednesday and Saturday nights on Facebook Live, premiered last April 25; it has taken several forms in 150 showings since then, including a March Madness-type tournament called “Elijah’s Cup” that ran through Passover, but the basic premise remains the same: The hosts announce the name of a Jewish person unknown to the competitors, and the contestants or (or in some cases, teams of contestants) work to locate that person and bring him or her onto the Zoom call by building a chain of connections using only clues from the hosts — no help from the internet allowed. When the game ends quickly, Hart and his co-hosts bring in a second individual. “There’s a lot of improv in the show,” Hart said. “We know where we’re starting and ending but nothing about the middle, and the more off the rails it goes, the more entertaining it is.” Hart can’t estimate the total number of people who have been exposed to the show because audience numbers vary widely, but a regular Wednesday or Saturday night show can attract up to 4,000 viewers, split about equally between those who watch live and those who tune in later.

The regular shows occasionally generate revenue in the form of sponsorships, but the bulk of the business is what Hart calls “community games.”  Those can take the form of  a “fun-raiser,” in which a group pays him to host a show as a fun way for them to spend time together online, or a “fundraiser.” Organizations from the World Union for of Progressive Judaism to a slew of summer camps to the Melton School of Adult Jewish Learning have all raised money on “Who Knows One?” and Hart, for his part, charges a flat fee, although upgrade packages are also available. One Jewish group — JumpSpark, a source of Jewish programming for teens in Atlanta — used the show as both a fundraiser and an educational experience. Four teens competed on a JumpSpark-sponsored show, which raised more than $3,000, said a spokeswoman. The students each chose an individual cause to support, and friends and family contributed to a pool of funds. All four causes — Project Merry Mitzvah, Camp Jenny, the Anti-Defamation League and Repair the World — received donations from that pool, although Repair the World received the most, as its sponsor won the game. “I appreciated the platform it provided me to reconnect with other teens and family friends I hadn’t spoken to in a while,” said Abby Limor of Temple Beth Tikvah, one of the participants. 

As Hart has gained experience in hosting the fundraisers, he’s devised additional ways to raise money; the audience can “buy” extra clues for the contestant they support, for example. He has a brain trust with whom he bounces ideas around, and audience suggestions have also helped shape the show — the name of the show was a viewer’s idea, he said. But he’s also worked for the Atlanta Hawks and the NBA, and his professional background helps, too, as he turns the project into more of a business. “Most of my life was about figuring out how to make money from digital content in a way that’s not intrusive for an audience,” he said.

Hart aims for an unpretentious vibe he calls “soul-nourishing” — the whole enterprise leans heavily into the come-as-you-are aesthetic of pandemic-era Zoom. Recommended attire is loungewear, although some contestants sport “Who Knows One?”-branded swag in the form of red headbands. The show also tries to be inclusive and to avoid assuming that every American Jew is Ashkenazi and fair-skinned, Hart said. He replaced a tie-breaker round that depended on finding someone with a “typically” Jewish name, for example, with one that focuses on occupations and home addresses.

As people get vaccinated and are able to safely gather again in person, demand for “Who Knows One?” could drop, Hart said. In that case, he will consider cutting the Saturday night show. However, he believes that the communal need for connection satisfied by the show predated coronavirus, although the pandemic exacerbated it. “We’re all isolated from each other, and that’s true in the pandemic era, but it already existed,” he said. “We accumulate people throughout our lives that we care about — from camp, school, college, previous jobs — as we get older, the ability to spend time with those people just melts.”

He’s considering several possible mechanisms to grow the show, including more community games. He’s toying with the idea of taking the show live, in the style of NPR’s “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me,” and has developed some customers outside the Jewish community, such as the American College of Emergency Physicians. “Desi Chain,” which plays on a Hindi term for people of Indian origin or descent, is a “sister show” to “Who Knows One?” Another possibility: a dating show, which Hart says someone asks him to do at least once a week. “I know the interest is there,” he said. “I have not figured out how to do that. People are still pretty isolated. But I think it’s possible, coming out of the pandemic, that some sparks could potentially fly.”

This article was originally published in eJewishPhilanthropy.