Exploring the Effect of Covid-19 on Youth Mental Health Policy, Service Providers and Messaging

So good evening Ithaca time everyone welcome to CIPA's Covid-19 Policy Discussion Series. My name is Janice Whitlock and I'm an instructor for Cornell's Institute for Public Affairs in the area of translational research. I'm also the associate director for teaching and training for the Bronfenbrenner Center for translational research and developmental psychologists who focuses on adolescent and young adult mental and emotional health and well-being in my research and outreach.

I hope everybody with us tonight is healthy and navigating these unusual times with some degree of equanimity. Probably helps that the weather's getting nicer.

As you all know, the Corona pandemic is having an enormous impact on virtually every sector of modern life. CIPA has initiated this discussion series as a means of exploring and documenting these impacts. These will certainly be just a beginning to what will undoubtedly be an ongoing set of conversations as we collectively make sense and adapt to what will be in many cases an utterly novel landscape as we go through this and pass this.

So this evening's topic is exploring the effect of Covid-19 on youth mental health policy services and messaging as many of you know the pre-covid 19 landscape was already challenging for many young people and adults in the area of mental health. As I'm certain is abundantly clear to everyone, this pandemic is only going to exacerbate the situation.

Institutions whose services are dedicated to anticipating and responding to mental health needs are one of the systems that stand on the frontline of the current climate. Understanding the impacts as they're occurring, coordinating systems to respond across the many contexts that youth live in, such as schools and families and colleges and finding meaningful and engaging ways to keep young people connected and supported and successfully coping with the long-term isolation and other challenges emerging from this time has posed a number of unique challenges so these are what I'm hoping we can discuss tonight.

By way of a few logistics there's gonna be time I hope at the end of submit questions or take questions but you can submit Q&A in the Q&A box below don't use the chat because we won't be able to see those in the transcript and we want to have them in the transcript.

I'll see them and I'll either weave them into the conversation or we'll take them at the end so without further ado I'm going to introduce tonight's panelists. I'm gonna start with John McPhee. John you can raise your hand just so people can see you, there you go.

John is the executive director and CEO of the JED foundation. It's a leading nonprofit that protects emotional health and prevents suicide for teens and young adults. He brings 25 years of leadership and management experience from the business and not-for-profit sector to his role in as executive director at Jed.

Earlier in his career he served in executive positions for Power Pharmaceutical Inc and Forrest Laboratories where he oversaw functions such as business development alliance management clinical development regulatory affairs, sales, marketing, and market research. In 2016, John received the Alan Rosen field Alumni Award for Excellence in the field of Public Health from the Joseph Melman School of Columbia and he earned a BA from Columbia as an MBA from NYU and MPH from Columbia University .

Courtney, raise your hand. Courtney's our onesie guy. Over the last two decades Courtney has developed a specialty in using media digital presence artists and influencers events and grassroots activities to inspire actions that improve people's lives health and well-being he's the co-founder of love is louder which I think you see right behind him.

Along with the JED foundation and he currently manages that campaign through his marketing agency and production company Louder Now Communications he also his agency also manages JED's media of relationships with a number of different partners including but not limited to MTV Spotify and TLC he was actually previously executive director of Jett and that's how I first came to know JED. It's through Courtney and he as a producer has received a Peabody Award and four Emmy nominations which I did not know until recently.

And then Victor gonna raise your hand. Are you there? yeah okay he's a CIPA fellow he'll be graduating in 2021 with a concentration in science technology and infrastructure. He's interested in revitalizing infrastructure in the US and in Puerto Rico to provide equitable services to represent communities prior to coming to Cornell he received a Bachelor of Science and media culture and communications from NYU where his fields of study were global and transcultural communications in interaction and social processes. After graduating he served as a Peace Corps volunteer in southwestern China where he taught English and at the university level. And he's says he's constantly on the hunt for creative writing opportunities and dreams of writing comic books. He is here on the panel tonight because he wrote a very compelling article for publication recently on keeping the humanity keeping our humanity in these times.

So welcome to all of you. Thanks for being here. I want to start first by talking about the effects on young adult mental health that are clearly emerging. John I'm hoping we can start with you as someone with a bird's eye understanding of community level impacts that are being picked up through various information and surveillance systems. So I'm wondering what you notice about key trends. Actually you can probably start out a little bit by talking about the JED foundation

John McPhee:

Sure we'll do. Thank You Janice. It's pleasure to be here and to be talking to everyone. So as you know Janice said, I'm the executive director of the JED Foundation which is a non-profit focused on teen and young adult mental health. Can folks see the slides, Janice? Are you ready to share? yeah. couple of sides to help guide okay oops sorry I'm supposed to put these up before. These are our panelists! okay go ahead. Terrific, yes so I said you know we focus on equipping teens and young adults with information and action around mental health how to care for your own mental health how to notice and help somebody else who might be struggling and we do a great deal of work with high schools and colleges around the many things that they can do with their policies and programs and systems to promote mental health and reduce risks for substance use and suicide. And we also focus on community organizations and families and the people who surround teens and young adults with regard to what they what they can do.

So I guess to start to go to the next slide. Just you know to set this just to set part of the stage before facing risks associated with Corona but there were there was a trend for increases among teens and young adults in rates of depression and anxiety and in suicidal ideation and behavior. This this graph is just presenting one piece of that data to you which is showing rates of major depressive disorder in the prior year among 12 to 17 years old year olds so that you can see from around the 2010 timeline you know there's been a there's been a steady increase. You know when we think about you know what what is this pandemic potentially doing in terms of mental health and what do we need to be aware of and what we need to prepare for and take actions to protect ourselves against this. There's a lot of things for us to think about. Janis if we could go to the next slide.

Okay so this is just this is that data was on teenagers this data is for college students this comes from a well-known survey called the American College Health Association assessment which shows that in in any given year also again pre coded that at some point during the year it's quite common for college students to struggle emotionally with feelings of overwhelming anxiety or just feeling you know so depressed it can be difficult to function at times and sometimes that resulting in you know drinking behaviors or abusing prescription drugs most often prescription stimulants. So this is just more data about the baseline if we now go into the next the next slide.

This is data from crisis text line actually so I don't know if you all are familiar with crisis text line or not it's a it's a non-profit texting service where through text people can access counselors it's something I recommend that you and know about all you have to do is text 741-741 if you you need to reach out to somebody and and have an exchange. And so what crisis text line is showing they are that people are really feeling the impacts of the coronavirus thus far so this first one there's been a large increase in the number of people that are accessing crisis text line since the beginning of the pandemic and you can see here that feelings of isolation or feeling left out are quite common you know among among the people that are that are texting in. And this is of course understandable given that we're all physically distant saying you know during this time. Let's take a look at the next slide Janice.

Yeah so here's an initial snapshot just you know again through the crisis text line data showing that people up to age 24 the majority are expressing feelings of loneliness or isolation. Although they don't feel you know they don't they're not afraid too much for themselves. Many are concerned about a loved one. Many have family members who are essential workers that they're concerned about and you know if you look at the youth young people under the age of 13 who are using this crisis service many of them more than four out of ten are actually concerned about the safety their own safety and they're in their home which is which is worrisome but you know to the to the positive teens and young adults are actually showing more resilience that that older Americans are during this period of time.

So what I say to summarize is when we think about what's protective for our mental health what's protective is being with other people feeling connected you know feeling a sense of belonging and during this period of time we have to work harder you know for that because we're physical distance might to find other ways you know other ways to connect we know that financial stress can be very difficult physical stress worrying about others so the virus is bringing a lot of reasons for concern a lot of causes for for distress and for that reason you know most people in the mental health field are quite worried about the potential consequences and the possibility of you know what's now being referred to as the second wave of the pandemic related to mental health issues and fallout.

But all of that is not to say that there aren't things we can do to protect ourselves and the people who love and we'll get a chance to talk about that. And John I wonder before we move on I wonder if you can just talk a little bit about how this is affected what Jed does in the world now yeah. Yeah so it's effective our work in a number of ways you know when we work with schools for example we visit the schools. We go there we help the schools form a team of people who including students and faculty and administrators that oversee men's health planning.

And so for one thing those meetings have become virtual you know and we do many trainings and workshops across the country usually in schools in churches you know in community settings and much of that has become virtual another way that it's impacted what we do is typically we're focused on the idea that a school should have a plan for how its supporting student mental health and reducing risk for substance use and suicide.

A written plan in the process and so you can think of us as sort of a systems change consultant in that regard. Right now and that that can that's longer-term planning if you will. When we work with a college for example we work with them for four years. Right now the work we're doing it's much more acute you know and focused on responding to Covid you know how can schools support students while they're distance learning how can we train faculty members to makesure that they you know know what to do if a student is struggling and there are signals of that. So we become much more of sort of an acute consulting firm ifyou will. And an inbound demand for our trainings or workshops our advice orguidance has exploded since this process started actually. We were always very busy but we're we're significantly busier now.

Thanks and Victor you you are somebody you're an interesting perspective because you're somebody who wrote about the need to keep our humanity early in this experience and you're part of the young adult demographic that we're talking about today is being vulnerable vulnerable so I'm curious if you can tell us about you know what prompted you to write that and what you're noticing about how things are playing out around you.

Oh a big reason that I wrote that article was one while I was in the Peace Corps I had a lot of feelings of isolation and I wound up getting counseling for them throughout the Peace Corps and then the others I had been listening to The Daily that day and I heard one of the four tenets of journalism and Mr. Rogers said that you have to try to point out beauty in the world when you can. So this this had gotten in my head as a point where there's something good happening I just have to find it and share it somehow and the Policy Review was the best way because it fits in with what I'm doing right now. And then I got a video from a friend about people in Spain singing on their porches to each other. And I was almost in tears because it was there's something just so like wondrous about that and so simple.

But it it keeps the reason I put keeping humanity is it keeps the social aspect of humans alive in a time where we are physical distancing and I like that John actually said physical businessing because I also come from a language analysis background where social distancing is kind of being converted physical distancing to remind people that you can be social in this time somehow in order to keep that that the mental effects mitigated to keep them from from exacerbating either previous conditions that we may be experiencing or from making a new condition that we didn't realize we might be facing at some point in our life.

One of the reasons that or one of the quotes that I pulled up for myself right now is that given the importance of social interactions for humans it's not surprising that, "more psychiatric disorders involve some disruption of normal social behavior and in several disorders abnormal functioning is one of the central symptoms".

This is something that is not just happening to individuals or a like region this is happening all over the world and I felt we need to keep going socially while also being prepared for what comes next because people are not going to come out of this feeling great or feeling like they've overcome something. They're going to come out feeling exhausted and is if they might be missing a piece of themselves is kind of how it came in my mind. And that's something that I hope that the more we talk about tonight we get a little more perspective into what institutions are looking at for that.

I don't necessarily have a read on that in terms of just non mental health related things or foundational related things I should say I think there's a sense of being inundated in terms of like ways that companies are reaching out about Covid like I think 30 things from emails I signed up with about like four years ago about how they're handling Covid. It does not matter to me how I is handling Covid honestly. But you start you start seeing a pattern of just pure exhaustion. And something that I was reading the other day was about how the more you talk about anything is like in general negative the more it wastes down on you.

So with young people being surrounded by media when you turn on the television you have a presidential conference going on about Covid. When you call your family if it's an older family member they're probably sharing their worries about Covid. If it's a younger family member they're probably asking questions about Covid. Loved ones you're talking about it with them just people on the street you can't get out of your mind if you see someone and across the street with amask because you know why they're doing it. It's it's very prevalent and it starts way down and then I also want to take another thing down and go a littlebit optimistic route.

Something I've been hearing with a lot of my friends in terms of what happens next after this. Because in my friend group we come from a community that I like to say grew up hard. We've been hearing it's it's about how do you make it so that the world exists together again. At what point do like policies start to adapt you okay people might (inaudible) I'll see cities since they're dense as being related to disease how do you combat that how do you make people realize they are safe in these places again. How do you how do you build up this trust in policies and in these institutions that are that are supposed to keep you safe when we have the biggest failure that we've ever experienced in any of our lives right now. So that's that's very much the sense but it's it's in an optimistic sense.  Because since we're talking about nowthey very much feel it can be done. So it's just about the transition and the discussion and then hopefully being able to implement it once things are safe.

Thank you yeah it's super interesting. Do you feel like your friends are over are hopeful? or are they pessimistic about what we can do? So it depends on the day but most of most of my friends within my group are hopeful. We we all have our own stressors in general that have just been exacerbated by this like the thing is I I could easily complain about how I probably shouldn't be keeping up with the way I am. But the the extrinsic part of me is like well this is pushing a lot of ideas that I agree with progressive wise don't want to throw out too much politics but we are a Public Admin.

So it's these ideas that you keep thinking well now we have the biggest example of why we need something like this. We have to come up as John was saying with like written plans of how we can put this forward and the fact that this is just showing a lot of like kinks me out of chaos and there's and there's hope and optimism in that. It's just finding the kernels of optimism to keep going about it. And that's it's not easy for everyone I can say that in a panel.

All right we'll come back round to did it to the you know we want to leave on an uplifting note so we have more time to talk about that piece. But now I think I'll move to you Courtney because you haven't you have an interesting perspective. Because you're so deeply embedded in the mental health communications world they have such a long-standing track record of working in the entertainment industry and with large corporations and collaborations to coordinate messaging so I'm wondering what you've noticed about how CD 19 is is affecting mental health messaging needs. So how's the landscape changed what are you noticing about user needs and responses. What are you just noticing about messaging in that in general? Yeah what can you hear me? yep. Okay cool.

Well I think one of the things to take into account is normally when we're doing mental health messaging around a campaign or an effort. We're kind of taking a blueprint for something someone or a group of people might be going with and building a messaging strategy around targeting that group of people hoping that we hit the people that are going through that at that moment and saying this is how you get through it. And then we kind of rally influential voices in their lives. Celebrities, media or whatever to help us kind of deliver that message. And so thisis different A because in those situations there's usually a part of your world that kind of is stable. And one of the tips we give a lot of peopleis like when things feel uncertain lean into the things that are certain or that you can rely on.

So this is a new dynamic because basically everyone's impacted so everyone's impacted and everyone's impacted in really different ways. So even when we like on Love is Louder social will every once in a while put up on a story like how are you doing today what's on your mind? And the range of responses is everything from bored like I don't know what to do with my time, I'm eating too much to like really really serious distress. And so it's this challenge of now we're not targeting a specific group that's struggling we're targeting a very big group and there's no real blueprint for us to go go through.

And I think the other thing that we finally caught up to that was different to when it comes to the media and celebrities and influencers is a lot of times we're actually proactively going to them and kind of encouraging them or persuading them to participate in this situation because they're also all impacted and all at home. They just started doing stuff like you know everybody was sending messaging out. Everybody was making suggestions. Everybody was giving tips and advice. So it also became not only is the problem bigger and the message needs to be impactful for a more diverse group of people who are all struggling in different ways.

We've also got all these people coming up with their own messages and tips and ideas. So it really has been kind of a learning of how do we best meet the needs of so many people, simply. Yeah so what have you had any surprises? I mean what's what is pose the most unusual challenge? The most unusual I think one of the most unusual challenges is it's been harder than normal to corral the voices and the channels that we normally use to get people's attention just because like I'm sure she wouldn't mind I'll use this example but I have a friend that works for Lady Gaga and Lady Gaga apparently asked these questions about Covid and her team was busy and by the time they got back to her she had just like called like top scientists in the world and gotten them on the phone.

So it's like there's all these people wanting to do things at home. So it becomes harder to get people to streamline and align their messages because everybody's kind of just doing things. So I think that's been difficult. I think the thing that we did which I think was a good which is a good move on our part because I think everyone plays their role in this scheme is instead of trying to come up with a campaign or like be out front you know with kind of a celebrity-driven thing we're like let's just try and build the most comprehensive and flexible resourcevcenter we can. And I think that kind of worked out for us because while everybody else was kind of trying to figure out the public facing strategy we had built kind of a solid resource which now a lot of different efforts so like the Big Alone Together push from Viacom and Ad Council they're leading to our resource center networks like TLC and Spotify are pointing to our Resource Center so I think one thing that we did that worked well for us it's been helpful is to really focus on the specific things that people can do andlet them kind of navigate that by whatever their their big issues are at that moment has been effective.

And have you noticed anything about users at all I mean what are their what are their responses you notice people started dropping off and one of the things I feel like I'm noticing is it's more just people drawing in words they're just not reaching out as much at least the people in my world but you know I'm not a young adult anymore and I don't know what whether it would be different if I were in that demographic but I'm wondering if there's what you've noticed about user traffic and interface with the resources that you all have provided.

You know what I think one thing I've noticed that I this is more of kind of a theory but I think that it's true is I think a lot of people's perspective on this is driven by the people they're interacting with or the people that are in their kind of network I've noticed a lot of similarities like I've been talking to different groups and different kind of coordinators at different schools and there seems to be like similarities when they're talking to like people that are connected or their friend groups so there's you know there was a big trend at the very beginning of this where a lot of college students were telling one of their responses was they were disappointed.

There was a lot of kind of FOMO and disappointment that they were missing things but then a lot of guilt about having those feelings because what place did they have to feel bad so at first we were getting a lot of that like I felt like the messaging and what we needed to put out there was stay home stay safe and let yourself feel the way that you feel. Oddly enough and some of those groups of people that I've been interacting with now that's almost kind of morphed into the not I don't want to say the novelty but the initial feelings around this have kind of worn off. And with all of this uncertainty it's hard to just stay in place so I've seen a lot of people that were hardcore stay at home stay safe all the time who are now just kind of like you know I'm ready to go out and do things and this isn't as scary as it was to me at the beginning.

And and that of course is something that we're trying to counteract in the messaging now because it's just as important to stand now as it was then yeah we were talking right before we all went on about where John is noticing in Utah I haven't noticed it here in Ithaca yet but in Utah people are starting to just come out and you said John that they're not we half are wearing masks half arms yes yeah and you know you're aware that that's happening in the city too which is a little bit sobering considering how bad it was there.

So that poses some interesting messaging challenges doesn't it yeah you know another interesting name this actually came up with some some influencers and I'd say I say they're male influencers just because I do think it's it has a little bit of kind of a gender perspective but they're they're guys that are very public about giving their young audience advice for like overcoming anxiety and being more confident. And I didn't really realize until we hit this moment that a lot of their advice is really short term based. It's like so if you're worried about an exam tomorrow kind of fake it till you make it. You know if you're scared about asking you know somebody out on a date just kind of like and I have a lot of people are having to re-educate themselves and their communities on how to move from very short-term core coping solutions to these really long-term coping solutions you yeah you know you can't deal with this two-month crisis the same way you would test anxiety.

And I think for better or worse a lot of the coping mechanisms that are given to young people are about very situational things that are happening soon. So that's been kind of a change to of how do we teach much more sophisticated coping mechanisms because it isn't so short-term. I totally agree I think that's gonna be an interesting potential opportunity and I think about this in terms of JED John are related you know the conversations happening there around promoting resilience and life skills and it speaks much more to what you're talking about Cortney these sort of long lasting life skills that can be deployed and for long for meeting these sort of longer-term needs is it's a different set of skills than just getting through the moment which is like a green farm where we focus but John I want to come back to you to talk about the impact that this experience is having on organizational capacity to meet existing the emerging needs and partly this comes out of the conversation that you and I had a fewweeks ago about how everybody's trying to say solvent in a time when theeconomy seems to be hugely compromised and potentially collapsing in some ways but JED and other organizations like JED are on the front line.

Including colleges and high schools and other places that serve an interface with young people so what what are you hearing and experiencing about how to stay solving and coordinated and efficient during this time.

Yes well let me just start with I guess just some background information for people to understand that nonprofit organizations charities like the JED Foundation are advised to keep on hand between 6 and 12 months of their coming years operating expenses as cash as a reserve in case you need it and to have 60 12 months on hand as cash is considered to be good management but when you think about a pandemic like this or a situation like this where the the circumstances are likely to be lasting and there they could lead to an economic downturn or a recession or a reduction in philanthropy then those six to twelve months can go very very quickly and as a result of that a lot of nonprofits are in very difficult situations. And we have seen many cut expenses reduce salaries furlough or layoff employees and what you need to do if you're you know leading an organization like JED right away is really carefully and honestly budget okay what do we think is going to happen here and reduce all unnecessary expenses right and conserve you know conserve where you can conserve.

Now there's a really big distinction in what's happening here between nonprofits that I would consider to be under the Covid aid response and relief umbrella right like disaster relief like mental health or the JED foundation you know I we are part of the Covid aid relief in response that means we're busier that means we're more fortunate than other nonprofits because as money is being given to Covid relief we will receive new grants and new funding you know for us to do our work so where other nonprofit organizations and I won't spend too much time on it but I want to name this that are working in other areas like you know ocean conservation or climate in many many other areas or working in rare diseases are likely to lose their funding or a portion of their funding and those those organizations in some cases are fighting for their you know for the organizational lives.

Early in this pandemic I was talking to a funder a major funder of JED and others and that funder said look some organizations are going to need help good organizations and and we're certainly willing and will step in to help them in this situation. But the more significant question for us and a question we're putting to you is which organizations are needed which organizations are actually not crouching down just trying to survive but are saying to themselves actually we can expand to meet the need and to help more people you know during this period of time and those are the organizations that we as a funder want to fund and actually may fund more than ever before right.

And so it's an interesting time if you're a sort of a human service organization because while everyone's working from home and and you know dealing with the many many difficulties you know that are associated with this the best thing that an organization like JED can do to help people but also to help itself is actually to do more work and to be of more service right and so and then you know the sort of if you do that the money will come sort of speak sort of speak you know and the organization will be you know doing good work and and also protecting itself for the future.

So that's that's exactly what we have we've been doing. Yeah thank you where the one who's told me when we were having that conversation somebody that I have insight and suggested that maybe 50% if not-for-profits may not survive this time. I that accurate? yes that's right. it's sobering. I think that estimate was specific to New York City I may have I may have said to you at the time that was to the country I think it's specific to New York City. but it's it's going to be it's a big number you know across you know across the country because charitable organisations often just operate on you know with small bank accounts and and really sort of month-to-month yeah do you have a sense of how that might I mean it's sort of casting forward and it may not be possible for you to address this but how might that affect the landscape in terms of support for mental health needs not just for young people but for adults as well well.

So in the mental health space I'm much more optimistic I do see the signs that funders and philanthropists are readily accepting the fact that mental mental health support is part of Covid relief I mean it's it's just starting but I'm I'm pretty optimistic that there will be significant investment and mental health including you know nonprofits that are that are working in the mental health space.

Yeah I guess I think what may we may need we may need to watch is you know a lot of the kinds of organizations that support the auxiliary kinds of challenges that people have that lead to the need for mental health like think about domestic treatment centers or I mean I treatment centers as well as domestic abuse child abuse all those kinds of not-for-profits that have emerged to meet a particular need that are no longer there. I maybe... That's yeah so that I completely agree with you I'm glad you because that's if they that's an important correction to what I'm saying because programs that are protective of mental health and so helpful you know to young people be they mentorship programs for example you know or College Success programs those those kinds of programs I think are going to find themselves in difficulty.

Also colleges themselves are under a lot of financial pressure in fact you've seen some colleges already closed because of this. And they're going to reduce their services most likely and and have to lay off some staff and to the extent that staff is being laid off in student affairs or counseling you know that's gonna weaken the support structure that's there for students and that's a concern. as well as students even being able to go to college. yeah that's alright.

So Victor I'm gonna come back around to you to talk a little bit about emerging opportunities before I do though I want to say that I didn't have the title of your article in front of me when I introduced you and I want to rectify that by speaking it so that people can go access it it's wonderful it's in the Cornell Policy Review and the article is called Keeping our Humanity in the Time of Coronavirus mitigating the mental health effects of social distancing and quarantine I thought it was really well done yeah you're welcome I'm sorry that I didn't have it on hand I was like oh but let's talk a little bit about emerging opportunities none of us know what the aftermath of this event is gonna look like a course but I wonder if you have begun to notice or think about unexpected opportunities that this disruption will bring to related to anticipating or meeting young adult mental health needs. So I was hinting at a bit before but I mean I am kind of an odd one out here I'm not necessarily an expert here so I haven't been looking at it in terms of like oh how we can provide for mental health it's more like the foundations that could lead to mental wellness problems or issues.

So one of the things that I heard on the Daily today which really got me thinking what was about how inequality in college campuses is more prevalent now because of copán and while we in the states at least I want to think that we are giving a lot to a lot of students who might not be able to get here financially by having all these programs or scholarships that over fifty percent of students in certain schools are like below poverty or not poverty line butbelow like 60 pay or whatever. and then it turns out the minute that you get rid of college experience of being within a classroom where everything as they saidon the daily is equalized all of a sudden you go back to these these completely different scenarios where your home life could be completely different than your campus life.

Which then impacts your campus experience as well as how you can kind of continue your academics something that a lot of students think colleagues of mine are like handling right now and stuff that is just going on all over so it's I I said opportunity have chaos before because there are a lot of things that are being pointed out that when you say them out loud you think of course that's the thing it's something that we haven't actually done in in these scenarios like one of the big things is we've noticed that a lot of african-americans are incredibly vulnerable to this disease with which not because of genetics but because of status and position right it tends to be that they are currently living in more vulnerable communities aren't getting the same like the same what is social safety nets that other community may be getting. duh like you say it out loud me like duh of course like I obviously knew that.

But when it comes down to it we don't practice it so these are things that they're kind of just not just a light not just a spotlight but I mean they're exploding in terms of being shown that these are problems so the optimism in my mind of having that is now now we see these glaring problems in American society and possibly in other other countries as well that that those are very much emerging opportunities because if you look at them it's very possible you are going to help mitigate by simply providing something that you should have been considering previously and now we have a huge example of what it could be doing yeah I think it's gonna be some interesting generational effects I mean that you know the people that are your age that are that are living through this and that are absorbing these very pieces these understandings that work sort of previously harder to see it's I think it's gonna leave some indelible traces that I hope will make us better as a society. I mean I've heard a few things and I actually have an article you guys or something else later but it's from Collective Psychology and it's about how we have to like collectively mourn and grieve in the era of coronavirus and how normally they do it within families sections but now we should do it as a society and how we have to come up with new grieving methods and I say this in an optimistic manner as well because that is something that not many people in society do understand how to do it's different culturally it's if it has stigma sometimes there are things about grieving that aren't necessarily you know clear.

But this paper is like 30 ages and it just goes down how our ancestors did it how we could possibly do it in an era tell hell how you can come together in in this new form of grieving. So I thought that was also something very interesting the kind we get generationally out of it a new way to kinda mourn and grieve together. Yeah yeah absolutely.

Cortney I'm gonna punt this one to you what do you see as potentially beneficial or lasting hopefully positive impacts of this time. One thing and I think it exists I was just thinking of this on multiple levels of what we've been talking about is just the focus on meaningful relationships I think that in today's digital world we are connected with so many people and I think one of the things that the nonprofit organizations that are probably doing well right now have already been doing you know so much of the old model of nonprofit was very transactional once a year we go to a corporation and ask for this sponsorship money once a year we go to these donors and we ask them to do this.

Once a year we go to these celebrities during mental health awareness month and say do this. Long we've kind of for a while at JED been focusing more on constant relationships. Like we don't only want to take your money we want to be part of your consumer messaging front.

So when this happened immediately we were corralling with our brand partners. so there was never really a threat of our losing our support from them because we had a relationship with them we weren't just going to a year and I think same with some of our celebrities and influencers we were able to just reach out to them and have a conversation with them because it wasn't transactional.

So I think that's happening on the institutional level but I've also heard that happening a lot with people like realizing I'm connected to a thousand people on social media but this has really made me realize who the important people are in my life. And I kind of look at this as an opportunity you know in the same way that you might go in an isolation diet from food to find out what food works for you and what doesn't we've all been kind of removed from so much of the routines and the people that our day-to-day life.

I think there's an opportunity to evaluate coming out of this where we want to put our time and energy and what relationships are most important on both a institutional and a personal level. Will that effect messaging at all? I think I think it will affect messaging in the way that we talk about relationships and connection. But I also think it makes an audience that's more receptive to those messages I think we can tell people all day long your thousand followers on social media aren't the same thing as a thousand friends. But I think this situation made them realize that and then I also think this is a really making us understand that we need to understand the needs of our audiences that we're messaging to, better. Create channels where we can get real-time information on what they're going through better and you know and figure out ways to take these broader mental health messages and customize them based on what people are needing in that moment. mm-hmm that makes sense thanks.

John what about you. Potential? How is gonna open new spaces. Well I think I certainly agree with everything that's been that's been said so far to me I and maybe I think this ties in to what Victor was saying that you know well some things have emerged that have been quite good like I do think a lot of good telehealth and telemental health care has been happening. And you know the government is being a policy discussion the government changed policies relaxed policies to enable that to happen. and I think I think a lot of good came out of that and will continue to come out of that. That we hopefully will retain ways we're using digital to stay connected while we add back the you know theimpersonal that's happening.

But there are much bigger policy and sort of societal questions that have the opportunity I think to be addressed coming out of this you know it's clear that there are major inequities in our health care system and access to care we all knew that but now we see it, you know. and how can it be that we're asking people telling essential workers you're hey you're an essential worker you've got to go you know you've got to go and do this but many of those people don't even have access to health care.

And yet society's putting them on the front line at risk and they're in there doing that you know I think if we can find the the the space here to step back for a second and think together as citizens in this community member it's like it's just not okay. You know and you know big policy changes have to happen to address that but you know this is such a big moment and it's revealing you know let's call them opportunities. you know and also you know just terrible cracks in the system that you know I'm hopeful that we can find consensus around a lot of these issues and actually you know make progress to to addressing them. and I do think that it's young it's young adults in the generation below them actually that can make it happen. Because if they find a you know Victor if your generation and and the students on the phone find anything close to a consensus then I think you could get any almost anything done from from a policy perspective.

You know and so that's that's one of my big it's not just a hope I don't think it's a pipe dream I think I think you know really important things like that can happen. And I'll give you just one one other examples simple little thing right well it's not a little thing. So if in fact unemployment is high and a lot of people are furloughed and lose their job right now. then what happens to all the people who are turning from age 25 to 26 that are on you know their parents insurance that are gonna that are going to lose that right. Well it's just a small thing but if the government can just go boom okay now it's 28 or we're gonna you know we're gonna we're gonna change that so you know policy matters policy ideas matters. And I think we have a chance here to put the wheel behind it and get some things done. Victor do you think that this current the current situation will help bring out your generation to vote in November? you think it's gonna have any impact on that. Definitely I do a lot of or I used to back in undergrad did a lot of like setting up voting booths to get people to register I hope so I definitely hope so the people on the phone and people watching this recorded, please vote!

Do I think it will drive I think as as speaking as the one who's part of the progressive movement I very much think there is an increased showing in terms of young voters coming out. It's it's just you have to you have to see in the next election and there's there's initiatives like hopefully vote by mail as well as, not apps ignore apps Iowa Caucasus was bad. But there there were things that were pushing hopefully more more voting capacity and I think this is if there's any situation to vote for it's because alright so I think there's um there's a question in the Q&A but Lisa when I click on that I can't see it for some reason. probably give us a big white box I'm wondering if you can read it for us or someone else can see if they can read it.

I don't know if Lisa's coming up but I can see it. Okay. The question is how do you think Covid 19 will affect the mental health of youth in our most vulnerable spaces in high-need districts? What is a cogent strategy to help mitigate the disproportionate impact they might face? Yeah any ideas?

Well look I think that the fact is that people in our most vulnerable spaces are going to face more challenges and more sources of distress than others you know and potential mental health fallout you know from from all of this you know the the financial impact you know etc. And I highlight the financial impact because there's clear data that unemployment and financial distress or directly correlated to to mental health distress. I also think this is a policy issue where is money going to be put where is it going to you know what kind of programs are going to be supported and where are they going to be supported. and I think it's incredibly important that this it this issue feeds into how resources allocated. One thing I'll say with regard to the JED foundation because we focus on schools we believe that schools mental health in every community and an underserved communities is incredibly important and it's one of something that we're logging and advocating for because we know at least in the case of youth that when we return this when they return to school online or in person that that is a real life structure that we need to make sure you know we'reputting resources into to help young people through this.

Yeah I really feel like this is an opportunity to have our to anchor our our policy in our ethics and the reasons for that are more clear than ever right the impacts are literally life and death and we're seeing it in real time. So while I personally don't have a huge amount of faith in the short term that we're going to be able to rectify what we're seeing. Although I do see community stepping up in really novel and innovative ways. So it's not as I'm writing it off but I do think the longer-term opportunity here and need and probability if we're gonna do something productive it's probably going to be over the longer term. But it's going to be in response to so like you were you talking about Victor it's just so obvious what the impact of these differential policy applications are in the world.

And we have we have to stand up and do something about it yes I'll also just add that you know philanthropist there's been a lot of money that's being donated to Covid it by you know by philanthropists and and organizations and corporations and a lot of that I think is going into the right kind of places but it's also something for us to keep in mind because public opinion in and sort advocacy will help direct those funds and where they go as well.

Right. So we have just a few more minutes I don't see any any more QA although I will encourage people to submit now if you want to and I will ask all of you in the panelist if there's one takeaway message you could give to you know I think most of the most of the probably the folks we have online are our young scholars or young you know people in the master's program probably maybe undergraduate interested in this area obviously what what would you tell them? take away would you give them?

I mean I would kind of build on what I said before I think one thing is just really the importance and the power of having kind of strong relationships and a strong net support network. so that when things like this happen those things are in place and I think from the larger end or the larger view I'm hoping that everyone as passionately as we've kind of embraced these notions of telling people how to stay home and stay safe and give them tips and advice, realizing that we're gonna be just as passionate about getting people back out in the world in a way that takes care of their emotional health and gets them back to where they need to be.

Because a lot of people especially young people are gonna be almost starting over after this. yeah thanks. Yeah and and Victor I'm gonna give you the final word so I'm gonna go next you know I would say what a really sort of what an amazing time to be students in in policy and in international affairs you know this is really showing the importance of policy and approaches to you know dealing with the challenges that we face as a society so I think it's an extraordinary learning opportunity for you all its students to look at you know how the United States is handling this how Zealand is handling it you know different states.

And to see and I think appreciate the opportunity and the power of the very field you're studying and looking to go into professionally and and clearly that you're needed. Victor the last word in. So I think from a personal standpoint more of a zoomed in as Courtney began with it's there there are things that you are obviously handling and dealing with and whether you're having a good day or a bad day about dealing with them.

You should give yourself the leeway to feel okay or bad meaty or forgive yourself when when you have a bad day and maybe as as they were mentioning before feeling a little bit forgive yourself for feeling like you have to feel about it as well as know that if something works last week for getting you to a better place today it might not work today and you have to switch it up. Your mental wellness is is so difficult. That's why it's such a fun emerging conversation in the world right now. It changes week to week how you handlesomething and that's also okay.

Then from a broader scale as you can tell from the panel we clearly have people who are having these big conversations having these these long thought-out processes about what happens next what do we do during how flexible can we be. Where where do we give what we need to give to people in equitable situations these are these are things that are definitely happening and you can get part of somehow. So I would encourage you find a way to get involved if this is something you're passionate about because you're gonna be hearing about it for years guarantee.

If you're talking about every years to write you the Great Depression you know. yeah exactly. All right thank you all thank you listeners for joining us Thank You panelists Victor John and Cortney for being here and talking with I love this I could talk about the stuff all night as you all know so I really appreciate you being willing and thank you for caring thanks for caring for people enough to dedicate your time to be here as well as your professional energies to doing something good in the world. Thank you Lisa thank you for hosting us! Yes thanks so much. yes and please socially distance and wear your masks! Nice meeting you all. Bye all!