“Mental health issues should no longer be placed on the backburner. All struggles are valid, no matter what generational differences there are. Having conversations and normalizing mental health care within families can help reduce the stigma. Increasing funding and access to mental health resources is a necessary next step, with a focus on hiring better trained staff in a culturally contemptuous background,” says Megan Go, a graduate student studying Higher Education and Student Affairs at the University of Connecticut.
Due to culture, generational trauma, and expectations in relation to mental health, it is difficult for Asian Americans to reach out for help even when needed. Mental health tends to be a taboo topic within the community. Past generations have experienced traumatic historical events such as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, The EDSA Revolution, The Vietnam War, surviving poverty, and on top of that, migrating to a new country.
As a psychologist and a parent of children participating in youth sports, it has been exciting for me to witness the increasing media attention on mental health and athletics. Mental toughness has long been a central topic within sports circles, but the current discussions are different. The past year has brought the mental health and well-being of athletes into mainstream conversation, whether it be as a plotline in season two of Apple TV’s “Ted Lasso” (promise, no more spoilers!), professional athletes’ stories highlighted during World Mental Health Day, or Simon Biles’ withdrawal from events at the Tokyo Olympics.
“As a psychologist and a parent of children participating in youth sports, it has been exciting for me to witness the increasing media attention on mental health and athletics. Mental toughness has long been a central topic within sports circles, but the current discussions are different. The past year has brought the mental health and well-being of athletes into mainstream conversation, whether it be as a plotline in season two of Apple TV’s “Ted Lasso” (promise, no more spoilers!), professional athletes’ stories highlighted during World Mental Health Day, or Simon Biles’ withdrawal from events at the Tokyo Olympics,” says Sandra Chafouleas, a UConn Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Educational Psychology in the Neag School of Education.
This latest installment of 10 Questions features Neag School alumni Curtis R. Darragh IV ’15 MA and Kurt Daigle ’19 (CLAS), ’21 MA, who recently won the Connecticut School Counselor Association’s top awards for 2021 for their dedication to school counseling.
Even before COVID-19, as many as 1 in 6 young children had a diagnosed mental, behavioral or developmental disorder. New findings suggest a doubling of rates of disorders such as anxiety and depression among children and adolescents during the pandemic. One reason is that children’s well-being is tightly connected to family and community conditions such as stress and financial worries.
“Even before COVID-19, as many as 1 in 6 young children had a diagnosed mental, behavioral or developmental disorder. New findings suggest a doubling of rates of disorders such as anxiety and depression among children and adolescents during the pandemic. One reason is that children’s well-being is tightly connected to family and community conditions such as stress and financial worries,” co-writes Sandra Chafouleas, a Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor in the Neag School of Education.
After more than a year of restrictions and online schooling, educators and counselors are focusing on ways to assess the long-term social, emotional and mental impact of the pandemic on school children when they return to the classroom. Christopher Booker reports from Fairfield County, Connecticut as part of our ongoing series, “Roads to Recovery.”
Lisa Sanetti said the “levels of heightened stress and waves of uncertainty” adults have experienced during this past year have very real effects on children. “I’d say that it’s not possible to focus on the children without making sure that the adults around them are healthy as well.”
For college students of color who encounter online racism, the effect of racialized aggressions and assaults reaches far beyond any single social media feed and can lead to real and significant mental health impacts – even more significant than in-person experiences of racial discrimination, according to a recently published study from researchers at UConn and Boston College.
