I attended an online conversation between the CEESA Directors and the co-founder of the Truman Group, Sean Truman yesterday. The Truman Group provides online psychological counseling and mental health services to expatriates.
Sean reminded us that the mental health of adolescents is at an all-time low. This is a trend that he has been seeing and the research supports, over the past 15 years and it was accelerated by the pandemic. The number of days of school missed, suicide attempts/completions, hospital visits, etc. are all increasing. Anxiety, depression, trauma, grief, addiction, life transitions, etc. are all issues that I see increasing, not only in students but also in faculty and staff. On a recent visit, our health insurance provider mentioned to me that mental health claims are up from 2% to 13% over the past two years.
Directors shared what they are seeing at their schools. This included the trauma of recent conflicts in Ukraine and Israel. Sean pointed out that we overuse the word “trauma”. Trauma is when a person fears death or being harmed and should only be used in cases of violence. Adults in schools have done a good job in having students acknowledge their feelings, but sometimes, students are over-sensitized. We need to remind ourselves as educators that sometimes, life throws adversity at students and often, an adolescent does not feel good. We need to teach them to work through it and be resilient instead of feeling like a victim for ordinary life events or news.
My one action item takeaway is that I want to make sure we include mental health counseling for our community during a crisis. I will review our crisis response procedures that mental health counseling is on our checklists and we are prepared in case of crisis.
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TIS Director's Blog 
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