Today, we're going to be talking about youth mental health and how we can support young people as they return to school with the delta variant surging. Like I've said in the past, I don't have all the answers — and that's why I call on an expert.

Dr. Nance Roy is chief clinical officer at the Jed Foundation. She has over 20 years of experience as a psychologist working in college mental health and is a senior advisor for the National College Depression Partnership. Her publications have focused on effective strategies for treatment and management of at-risk students on college campuses.

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Every Wednesday morning at 8:30 CST, Jill Riley connects with experts and local personalities for some real talk about keeping our minds and bodies healthy — from staying safe in the music scene, to exercising during a pandemic, to voting and civic engagement. Looking for more resources and support? Visit our friends at Call to Mind, MPR's initiative to foster new conversations about mental health. Subscribe to Wellness Wednesday as a podcast on Spotify, Apple, RSS, Radio Public, Stitcher, or Amazon Music.

Jill Riley: I mentioned the Jed Foundation. Can we get a little background on what that foundation is all about?

Nance Roy: The Jed Foundation is a nonprofit whose mission is to promote the emotional well-being of teens and young adults toward the end of helping to reduce suicides and substance misuse. We're in our 21st year, and work primarily with high schools and colleges — and more recently, work organizations — promoting emotional wellbeing and hoping to reduce suicides as a result.

I know that there's a lot of stress for young people as they're thinking about heading back to school. There are a lot of challenges each year facing our youth as they return to school, but the past couple years have been very different. What are some of those challenges facing young people as they return to in-person learning during a global pandemic?

There are multiple challenges, I'm afraid, and we're hearing from many schools that we work with across the country about how they're trying to plan and prepare. I think one of the things that we've all recognized and that the data have borne out to be true: students are experiencing increased feelings of anxiety, depression, loneliness, isolation during this past year and a half. Not necessarily reaching clinical diagnoses, although some are, but for truly feeling an increase in feeling anxious and depressed and lonely and isolated.

Many, many students are apprehensive about how they're going to re-acclimate to in-person learning. For many students, they feel that they have fallen behind academically. The disparities have become glaring between those students who may not have access to high-speed internet, or home environments that allowed for online learning in a convenient way. So I think we're certainly going to see a number of academic challenges and the need [to] catch up for some of our students.

And then I think with the Delta variant looming large is a lot of anxiety about the uncertainty of what might unfold when students get back to school. Are they going to be able to remain on campus for in-person learning? Are they going to suddenly have to switch to remote again? It's that sense of the unknown, really, that creates the most anxiety for our young people.

How can we facilitate supportive conversations with young people to get them to talk about how they're feeling? I have a five-year-old son. He's generally pretty open when I when I ask him, "How are you feeling?" But I imagine someday, when he's 13, 14, that conversation may be a little harder to kind of pry out the information. How can we get those conversations going?

I like to say, this is not rocket science. I think we all actually do this every day in our day-to-day lives with friends, colleagues, family members. It's really, you know, not necessarily waiting until we see someone breaking down in crisis or crying or visibly distraught, but really starting when that light bulb goes off in your mind, like, "Looks like something might be up with Nancy today, let me reach out simply to say, 'Hey, I noticed.'"

For example, say, a teacher: "I noticed you've been more quiet in class than usual. Can I help? is anything going on?" It's really offering just a warm hand, a friendly supportive outreach from someone who is organically in the student's world — whether that's a parent, whether that's a teacher, whether that's a coach trying to develop an atmosphere, especially in our schools, of compassion and caring, where there's no wrong door to walk through for support, where everyone is ready in advance.

Also to offer a warm hand if a student reveals a crisis: know where to get them connected to professional help if it's needed, but more often than not, it's that sort of in-the-moment, almost casual conversation. "Gee, how's it going? I've noticed X, Y, or Z," whatever it is that you can name that you've noticed, that's causing you to reach out. And then just, "Is everything okay?"

What are some warning signs that that a student might be kind of at risk or in trouble?

In addition to not presenting in their normal way, like being quiet or not turning in assignments, or what have you, [is there a] change in appearance? For folks at home, what about sleep? Is [the student's] appetite disrupted, or children not engaging with friends as much as they used to? Are they spending more and more time alone?

These are some of the things in their daily living, where you could easily point to, you know, "Gee, you've been sleeping a lot," or, "You haven't been sleeping at all," or, "Your appetite seems to be gone," or, "You haven't talked with your six friends that you normally thick as thieves with." Those are some of the signs that parents and teachers both can be looking for as warning signs.

I just have a question about the word "resiliency." Are our young people as resilient as society believes them to be?

We hear especially at the college level, that they are seeing increasing numbers of students coming through their doors that do not have the same level of resilience as perhaps they were seeing 10-15 years ago. In large measure, that's due to the fact that we have a generation of young people who have come to the ranks [of college students] — for many of them, not for all, but for many of them — with their parents sort of taking care of any obstacle that may have come their way. You know, going to the teacher for the student if they get a bad grade; or the coach if they didn't make a team; or planning this activity, that activity, this play date. I think in many ways, we've done our young people a disservice by really precluding them any opportunity to navigate conflict or work through a challenge on their own, so that they can then have that feeling of resilience when they've worked through something and they've made it to the other side.

I think while well-intentioned, many parents have impeded [students'] ability to develop resilience. I will say, however, that I do think the pandemic has resulted in many students having to find their way and work through and I think that has contributed to the development of better resilience skills for our youth. You know, unfortunately, you know, [it] took the pandemic, but I think it may have provided an opportunity to, to build up those resilience skills that have been lacking.

I was just thinking about when I was growing up, I never heard the [phrase], "It's okay to not be okay." My parents were of the generation that you just keep pushing forward — and we we all go through hard times, and we just kind of work hard and keep our heads down, and we press on. You know, so that was the thing that was really stuck in my head. That's what I grew up with. And I don't really know that that was resilience or not, but it was certainly hard for me to admit to others or to even ask for help when I needed it...and I wonder if that's kind of part of it. Is this a changing idea of kids feeling more comfortable with admitting when things aren't going well?

We have found, especially with our young people, that stigma is on the decline for sure, which is great, you know, having folks feel freer and more open to discuss when things aren't going well. But to your point about how you grew up with your family philosophy. I think it's really a both-and. I think it's okay not to be okay, and at the same tim, here are some things that perhaps we can think about together that might help you to feel better, so that you're both helping the students have a sense of agency in working, acknowledging first and validating their feeling or concern or challenge. And then, at the same time, talking through with them: what are some things they might be able to do to feel better or help themselves?

I wonder if you have just any final thoughts on the best way forward during the delta variant surge as young people are heading back to school, whether it be little kids in pre-k all the way up through college students?

Well, one thing I would add that I think we often forget about is to remind parents, caregivers, teachers, those people who are interacting with young people on a daily basis, to also remember to take care of themselves: to practice self care, to be a role model for young people. But really, if we're going to be able to help our young people transition and sort of resume their studies, their daily living, then we also need to be well ourselves in order to do that to help them. So, [don't] forget to take care of yourself in the process of helping our youth.

Wellness Wednesday is hosted by Jill Riley, and produced by Christy Taylor and Jay Gabler. Our theme music is a portion of the song "F.B. One Number 2" by Christian Bjoerklund under the Non Commercial Share Alike 3.0 International License. This week's photo is by Lexiekin Prints (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0). The image was altered: it was cropped, filtered to greyscale, and supplemented with a logo.