Hope Squad featured in ABC News special exploring the mental health crisis among youth amid COVID-19

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Two years after the COVID-19 pandemic began, mental health challenges still impact youth.

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But in a new one-hour ABC News primetime special anchored by “Good Morning America”‘s Robin Roberts, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy said children have struggled with mental health long before the pandemic.

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“The pandemic’s been more challenging for some children,” Murthy told ABC News chief medical correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton. “If we wanna address this, we’ve got to listen to kids.”

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In October 2021, the American Academy of Pediatrics found “soaring rates of mental health challenges among children, adolescents, and their families over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

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Two months later, Murthy issued an advisory on the youth mental health crisis, emphasizing that mental health challenges are present among children and young adults.

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To help young people heal, Murthy has been doing listening tours with youth across the country.

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In the ABC News primetime special “24 Months That Changed the World,” Ashton sits down with Murthy and kids at Ida B. Wells Middle School. in Washington, D.C.

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“I felt like that little kid in me disappeared and I started worrying about stress,” said Daylan Joya, a student at Ida B. Wells Middle School.

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Added student Machi Brooks: “Don’t just treat us like, ‘Oh, you’re a child.’ Treat us like what we’ve been through is as equal to what you’ve been through.”

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At a high school in Mason, Ohio, the Hope Squad was created to help students with their mental health.

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“Tons of people needed help during the pandemic,” Kaya Rossey, a member of William Mason High School’s Hope Squad, told ABC News.

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In one exercise, students role-played how to handle self-harming behavior when they spot it.

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Dr. Alok Patel, a physician at Stanford Children’s Health and ABC News contributor, said a “silver lining” of the pandemic is that it’s opened the conversation on mental health.

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“One silver lining that has come is the amount of discussion and awareness that has happened to talk about their own mental health struggles,” said Patel.

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“24 Months That Changed the World” aired on a special edition of “20/20” on Wednesday, March 30, on ABC. It is also available on Hulu.

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