After COVID, school social workers to trying to mend social and emotional life

FRANKLIN — At Franklin Middle School, a rattled and tearful eighth grader knocks on the office door of Oriana Filiault, a social worker whose job includes helping kids navigate social and emotional quagmires - which might not have seemed so sticky before COVID interrupted in-person learning.

Across the county, the pandemic froze the social and emotional skill building that normally takes place in schools – leaving a chasm of reduced coping, a draught of empathy, and a harsher and blunter social world where almost anything goes between peers. Seven months after the return to full-time, in-person classes, meals and recess, it’s still hard for some kids to feel welcome, connected and comfortable.

“This is the student I need to turn the lights down for,” said Filiault, a social worker for more than 20 years.  The student seeking her counsel and a refuge is feeling battered and overwhelmed by taunts from two girls who have also upped their attacks on Twitter and Snapchat. It’s not an isolated occurrence. Nor is she the only victim of intensified social assaults. Subtle or overt, a culture and attitude shift is gripping many schools post-COVID, and making it tougher for students to learn. 

“It’s my job to help my students manage all the other things that get in the way of being able to learn,” said Filiault. “All these things that are rolling around in their heads that make it impossible to concentrate, because life is so stressful.” Many of these stressors ballooned in COVID’s isolation and now overshadow students of different ages.

In the wake of COVID, more high schoolers seem ill-equipped socially and emotionally to handle the same old rigors of being in school.

“Developmentally they’re two years lower but chronologically, they’re expected to be freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors,” said Taylor St. Jacques, an intervention counselor at Franklin High School since 2020.

Social and emotional learning has fallen behind where it should be

Prolonged isolation and life on screen and through social media by phone, 24-7, have ushered in an inconsiderate world. Many students are now finding it difficult to negotiate social situations in person or one-on-one. Others seem unaware of what they’re saying, even when remarks slice into personal appearance, a universally sensitive issue for teens. A few tougher souls seen to have burnished armor. Others are insult slingers. Others seem simply immune, and somehow sail through – typically those with strong, supportive families, according to social workers.  

Filiault said a middle school girl repeatedly calls her close friend “a hippo,” and rationalizes it by saying “It’s OK because we’re friends.” School mental and behavioral health counselors, often called interventionists, are treating social and emotional gaps that have translated into a lack of empathy, a reduced ability to censor or weather mean remarks, and heightened anguish and anxiety.

Mental health experts say it has a lot to do with being sequestered at a time when social development occurs by trial and error through experience and interaction.

“Anxiety builds in avoidance,” said St. Jacques, a social worker who counsels students on how to maintain or modulate in-person relationships, and not instantly retreat or hide from unpleasant or stressful interactions – which seem all-encompassing and inescapable now that schools are in full swing.

Shifting from middle school to the wider and deeper demands of high school has always been an uphill climb with speed bumps and plenty of culture shock.  But now the steps seem greater. Students who became freshman during remote and hybrid school were able to avoid that transition, and now “They’re having to confront it five days a week,” St. Jacques said.

It shows up in their interpersonal relationships with peers and teachers and in public speaking in class. “Either they’re more clammed up or just don’t know how to behave at all,” said St. Jacques, a graduate of Franklin High School who worked as a social worker in Hanover at Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth before taking the job here.  

She said now that kids are back in school after a long spell of remote and hybrid learning, more are disinterested, distracted and disengaged, with heads down on their desks or glued to their phones, or they’re disruptive and looking for any reason to escape the classroom.

“This isn’t every student but it’s a big change we’re seeing,” said St. Jacques. “There are a handful of kids who are well-adjusted and are managing their grades. But I would say there’s a large percentage who are not well adjusted.” This makes St. Jacques and others in behavioral health and education worry. How will students who were or became teenagers during COVID fit into the working world, which depends on teamwork, face-to-face communication and social give-and-take?

Good or bad, “The high school experience is such an instrumental part of everyone’s life,” St. Jacques said.

School teachers and staff working with students in all grades are shocked by the lack of social filter and awareness, the disrespect and insulting and degrading language that is volleyed between peers – and is used to address authority figures. It’s almost as if what is blurted out on social media has become a model for in-person interaction and speech, they say. Much of what was creeping into social life at earlier ages and becoming more widespread before COVID-19 has taken a leap forward in frequency and intensity, observers and mental health workers report.

For some, it’s making learning much harder. Kids who fell behind during remote and hybrid school, with a shorter school day and relaxed requirements for online assignments, are now dealing with the pressures of having to catch up, perform in class, and manage their time.

“They were really able to avoid consequences for over a year,” said St. Jacques. “It’s different if you don’t submit an assignment online than if you come into a classroom and the teacher says, ‘Where is your homework?’”

During the pandemic, many older students found themselves thrust into the role of babysitting and supervising younger siblings – and sometimes those situations devolved into aggressive and unhealthy balances of power. Teachers who lead classes over Zoom, with computer cameras and microphones required to stay on, said they witnessed shouting matches between children and parents, and children locked in bathrooms to avoid fights with brothers and sisters. Because of parents’ requirements to leave for work, many children were left unattended, and chaos reigned. Some came to their virtual class dressed in their pajamas and lying or sitting in bed. Some were embarrassed to have their homes and bedrooms projected to everyone in class. Remote and hybrid learning allowed some personal and family crises to go unreported or unwitnessed, until the kids returned to school and began to speak up or act out. For more than a few youngsters, self-esteem and confidence nosedived and maturation froze in place. In some instances, it slid backwards.

Now, mental health counselors say more children are thrust into grades and social situations they’re not equipped to embrace.

At middle school, there are some heightened challenges, with pre-teens steeped in the discovery of who they are and want to become. They and their peers lack social skills expected at this point, and are prone to saying things without thinking, caring about the impact, or realizing that what they post online stays up, and can unravel someone else’s life.

A safe haven at school

At Franklin Middle School, Filiault’s office is decorated be a safe haven, adaptable to student needs and maturity levels, and individual sensitivities.

A garland strung on one wall features dangling cards: “You are smart,” “You are inspiring,” “You are strong,” plus artwork by her Filiault’s own children. A poster depicts a variety of facial expressions, and the feelings they reveal: hurt, guilt, fear, anxiety, shame, jealousy, frustration, embarrassment. Body language that eventually becomes second-nature to interpret, but has become more foreign as a result of school going remote, and fewer kids showing up for any in-person class.

In order to make kids feel more comfortable and less scrutinized, Filiault can turn off the ceiling lights that shine through translucent covers of blue skies and puffy clouds, mimicking the view through skylights. She can turn on a standing lamp with a mellow glow, and a tabletop aromatherapy diffuser.

Her office conveys messages she would like to broadcast: Safety, hope, validation. Relax and be yourself.

Suddenly there is a knock on the door. A fourth grader trundles in, grinning, to finagle a piece of candy.

So far this morning, she has conversed with parents, intervened when children are having a tough time in class, and helped to talk through relationship problems.  She has also conferred with child protective services, and counseled a youngster engaging in self-harm.

For the fourth- through eighth-graders who attend FMS, there are conflicts with peers, difficulty communicating what’s going on in school or at home, and basic needs such as clothing and food and emotional support. Franklin is a city in miniature, with all the social, economic, public health, mental health challenges of a larger community, including families with incarcerated siblings or parents, and ongoing substance misuse.

“The majority of these students cannot be left home alone. If you don’t have school, what do you do?” asked Filiault, thinking about the upheaval of the last two years, and the lives of students who could no longer find safety and stability at school.

Kindness in their heart

But there are more than glimmers of hope, and educators are optimistic that time, intervention and school immersion will heal many student deficits – including in empathy and positive social connections.

This fall, Franklin High School started offering a one-semester course, Freshman Academy, to help kids surmount the hurdles of time management, increased workload and expectations, and the social and emotional requirements of adapting to high school after being sequestered full- or part-time at home. Wraparound meetings of teachers, guidance counselors, social workers and representatives from community supports help to address individual student needs and crises in a timely fashion, said St. Jacques.

At Franklin Middle School, Filiault is heartened by the success of peer mentoring between unlikely students – kids who have learning and behavioral disabilities matched with student partners who have some lesser but similar struggles. With mentoring, Filiault said the benefits go both ways, bringing a feeling of pride, personal mission, self-esteem and greater sense of belonging – all of which help with learning.

She has been surprised at recent examples of empathy in action – and not from children who school officials would automatically tap to be leaders.

Filiault asked a sixth grader who sometimes targeted other kids to look out for a fourth grade boy who was being bullied. The girl took up the gauntlet immediately, relishing the role of keeping a protective watch over a younger student. “She took it on and is going to make sure this kid’s OK. If you can give them a responsibility and show that you’re trusting and counting on them it helps. It makes them feel proud and better about themselves,” Filiault said.

Another alliance occurred naturally, without suggestions from any adult. An eighth-grader befriended another student who is in the Odell program, which mainstreams kids who would ordinarily be sent outside the district for special education services and behavior support. The mainstream student has chosen to eat lunch with the student in Odell, and asks him to play at recess, despite any blowback he receives from his more self-conscious peers.

“I see them supporting each other,” said Filiault. “This student will go out of his way to invite the other student to sit with him at lunch” and spend recess together. “The cool kids are not supportive. The Odell student has poor social skills,” and his student partner can struggle academically and with appropriate behavior in class. At this age particularly, “to try to be supportive to someone else is huge. You have to be understanding,” said Filiault. “He’s someone who clearly has kindness in his heart.”