Amid a flurry of district mask mandates hitting just before the start of the 2021 fall semester, some Colorado mental health experts are forewarning another difficult school year.

Especially if people face it alone.

On Thursday, two of those experts met for a virtual town hall, hosted by The Gazette, and 9News, on how educators, students, and their families can navigate a fall return to in-person schooling, mounting mental health concerns, and the lingering challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Their discussion was moderated by 9News’ Chris Bianchi.

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Heidi Baskfield, interim executive director for the Partners for Children’s Mental Health, and Dr. Steven Berkowitz, child psychiatrist and University of Colorado School of Medicine professor, primed teachers and families on the types of challenges their students, and they themselves, may see this year.

Chief among those, the two said, is the overall lack of consistency students face in the coming year, arising from the pandemic itself as well as the uncertain sense of normalcy it’s resulted in.

Examples of that lack of consistency they cited ranged from possibly varying mask mandates in schools, to returning to classroom settings that some haven’t seen for a long time, to student concern over their eligibility to be vaccinated and protected against the virus.

The two also discussed factors outside of the pandemic, like family instability, a lack of emphasis on social or emotional learning, or even recent weeks of Front Range haze driven by wildfires as ongoing contributors to the mental burden young people carry.

“COVID is certainly front and center for all the various reasons, but kids are facing far more than a pandemic,” Berkowitz said.

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Baskfield, who is also the vice president of Population Health & Advocacy at Children’s Hospital Colorado, and Berkowitz also discussed isolation, which has become more commonplace for students as pandemic mitigation protocols separate them from their peers and in some cases, Baskfield said, has exacerbated challenges students may face.

But students aren’t the only ones facing a new set of challenges.

“Teachers are being asked to do more than ever,” Berkowitz said. “They too are facing an inordinate amount of stress, and many of them have kids in school.”

Part of that stress is the fact that teachers are often on the front lines of helping their students with mental health challenges, and need support to do that, Baskfield said.

“Teachers need to be provided support themselves on what is their role in supporting youth mental health,” she said. “Where that starts is providing teachers with tools on ‘How do you spot mental health issues?’”

Baskfield said Partners for Children’s Mental Health, as well as the nonprofit Mental Health Colorado, provide trainings for educators on spotting mental health challenges.

For parents with students facing mental health challenges, especially during the coming year, Berkowitz recommended a community approach.

“It’s a lot to ask parents to become psychiatrists and social workers, so one thing I tell parents in general — if you have any concerns or doubts, ask, find somebody to talk to about it” he said. “We don’t do this in isolation.”

One thing the two lamented, however, was what Baskfield described as a “pretty huge gap” in mental health resources and caregivers for children in Colorado.

“We don’t have a comprehensive system of mental health care for kids in this state, we just don’t,” she said. “And that is informing so many of the challenges that we’re seeing right now.”

In 2021, state lawmakers inked nearly 20 bills into law on mental health care and young people.

Berkowitz said Colorado has one of the largest gaps in mental health care for children of any state he’s seen.

“It’s really important to recognize that while Colorado may be worse than a lot of places, no place has a sufficient number of providers — it’s just not possible.”

That’s part of why seeking help among one’s community should be treated as a rule of thumb.

“It is going to be a hard year, and we have to acknowledge that, we have to accept that,” Berkowitz said. “The way we’re going to get through this is if we do it together. We really need to facilitate community and conversation, and we have to ask adults to put themselves in the skins of the children.”