Riding the Zoom Wave An SRQ Series: Part 1 of 2, the Pandemic Expanded the Number of Students Turning to Telehealth for Mental Health Care.

From SRQ Magazine, December 2021

The pandemic in early 2020 forced snap changes in the way most people worked, learned and fundamentally lived. The change proved swift, jarring and unrelenting. The contoured surges and slumps in COVID-19 infections made a return to normalcy, if such a thing exists any longer, an inconsistent course with occasional reversals.

Learning environments adjusted to reach longer distances. Intimate therapy sessions moved from office couches to computer windows. Shifts came with cost. As discomforting feelings of isolation became more widespread, the delivery of mental health services became necessarily more remote. And the more time passes, the more it becomes clear some aspects of modern life may well have changed forever.

Students at Ringling College of Art & Design, once abruptly told to leave behind their studios and high-tech tools on campus, have returned to campus. But even now, many classes continue to stream virtually. In the public schools, an effort to bring mental health professionals onto campus had to turn a significant part of its focus to reaching students and their families in their own homes.

The pandemic has generated challenges in the field of mental health, including increases in feelings of depression and isolation. But it also spurred a move in a direction of helping people in their own homes instead of a foreign environment. In many cases, there are patients who don’t want to go back.

Read the entire story (including quotes by NCF’s Dr. Anne Fischer) here.