As the situation with COVID-19 continues to evolve, feelings of uncertainty and anxiety can arise for students, faculty, and staff. Our research tells us that 66% of high school administrators feel that young people’s mental health issues have increased over the last five years (High School Mental Health Research, JED/Fluent, 2020). These issues may be heightened during times of fear and uncertainty. The following are some recommendations and resources that may be helpful as you support your students in maintaining mental and emotional health while they continue to focus on their studies:
- Seize The Awkward tips and resources around maintaining mental health during the coronavirus and connecting with friends and family.
- Set To Go provides students, families, and educators resources on how to get emotionally prepared for the transition from high school to college or adulthood.
- In collaboration with CommonLit, JED produced 5 online lessons that have been adapted from the Set To Go platform to be shared out in classrooms across the country. Help your students learn all about emotions, self-image, self-care, life skills, help-giving, and resilience.
- With Text, Talk Set to Go, juniors and seniors can prepare to get Set to Go. The program delivers conversation prompts via text to help small groups explore a variety of topics in preparation for college. This activity has been modified to allow students to participate remotely.
- The Right Fit Quiz helps students, counselors, and families think in-depth about whether a particular school is a good ‘fit’ for a student from an academic, emotional, and personal preference standpoint.
- For the latest updates on protecting mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic, visit our COVID-19 Tips and Updates page.
Additional outside resources
- College Board’s Coronavirus Updates
- COVID-19 Multilingual Resource Hub
- National Association of School Psychologists resource center on COVID-19
- National Association of School Nurses COVID-19 resources page
- National Association of Secondary School Principals COVID-19 resources page
- The Trevor Project’s white paper: “Implications of COVID-19 for LGBTQ Youth Mental Health and Suicide Prevention”
- WE Schools, a series of service-learning programs developed by the WE movement, has launched several resources in response to the recent COVID-19 pandemic
- Live with WE Schools (K-12): Hour-long classes, Monday to Friday, featuring mixed educational content for all age ranges including book clubs, curriculum, Q&A sessions with special guests such medical health professionals, uplifting content such as music and inspiring service stories
- WE Well-being resources: In collaboration with leading mental health experts, these resources are designed to equip youth, families and partners with tools to support well-being to curb anxiety, build resiliency, and practice self-care
- WE Well-being Playbook: This resource is available for free download. To account for the COVID-19 new realities, the playbook is being updated to include tips for creating a sense of community and belonging during a time of isolation