By Alyson Klein
There’s been a quieter, parallel pandemic happening alongside COVID-19: a spike in significant mental health problems among young people, spurred by isolation, uncertainty, fear, and grief.
Mental health emergency visits among children are on the rise. Between March and October of 2020, they increased 24 percent for children ages 5 to 11, and 31 percent for kids ages 12-17. There was also a more than 50 percent spike in visits for suspected suicide attempts among girls ages 12 to 17 in early 2021, compared to the same period in 2019.
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