Assignments, work, summatives, and personal life can already put enough stress on students during a regular school year. Considering the situation with COVID, those stressors may be heavier than they typically are. Luckily, if life gets tough for students, they have someone to go to for any of their concerns: social workers.

Throughout the pandemic, social workers have had a huge role in helping students deal with the struggles that come from being stuck at home, whether that’s from a mental or educational standpoint.

One way social workers have been helping students is by giving them advice on how to deal with difficulties with remote learning. According to social worker Tami Broskow from the P-Z pod, some students have been doing well remotely and have managed to get their work done. However, for others, that is not the same case.

“I have a lot of students that want to be at school. They’re tired of being at home,” Broskow said.

According to Broskow, she along with other social workers and school counselors are trying to figure out what will help students get the most out of remote learning. 

“Some students, it’s more frequent check-ins and it’s helping them again with that time management or with coping strategies to deal with boredom, or procrastination, or just feeling kind of crabby about being at home and not being at school,” Broskow said.

Some social workers have also been helping freshmen transition into high school. According to Amanda Minogue, the social worker of the Freshmen Academy pod, she and the other staff members of her pod have been sending out resources to freshmen. 

 “We create monthly newsletters and we send that through our freshman pod email to all the freshmen. It contains updates, the countdown to the end of the semester, freshman pod support or things for studying, mental health resources, things like that,” Minogue said.

Social workers have also given help that benefits the student body as a whole, not just certain individuals.

Recently, in the physical education classes, a video lesson from Principal Marcus Belin was presented. In the video, Belin walks through a presentation on mental health and relates it back to the pandemic. The presentation was organized by the social workers as well as the school counselors.

A couple of reasons behind this lesson was to keep the conversation on mental health going and let everyone be aware of the information on mental health in general.

“The more we know about it, the more we can really be able to cope with whatever comes our way or whatever we see somebody else dealing with and to know when we can’t help but we might need to find help for a friend,” Broskow said.

Whether or not you have taken the time to implement the resources they’ve provided, the work social workers have put in should not be forgotten.

Besides, it doesn’t hurt to know that there is someone who will be there for you when you’re going through tough times.

“You’re never alone on your darkest days. We are here to help you, no matter what that might be. Whether that’s through your academics, your social interactions, mental health concerns. We are here for you,” Minogue said.