In Plymouth, there’s a significant downside to the pandemic inspired school landscape of three days of at-home learning and two days in school.
Jennifer Pinto, a mental health counselor, who partners with the Plymouth Public Schools to run the PreVenture Program, says there is a fall out from this situation.
Bobbi Clark has more:
Pinto says there’s a lot of distress that is occurring with both children and families:
“The reason for that is that there is a loss of social connections and there’s a lot of times kids are spending in isolation. A lot of kids don’t necessarily know how to ask for the support and resources that they need to be successful— that causes a lot of disengagement.”
So what’s the answer?
“I think having kids get back into school is going to be an enormous improvement in the current situation in terms of social and emotional health. Getting kids back in school is essential: they can start reconnecting with friends and re-engaging socially. I think that we are going to see a huge improvement in the emotional well-being of kids—and that’s where we need to start.”
Jennifer Pinto also oversees an outpatient mental health clinic for the Old Colony YMCA.
