Supporting Teen Mental Health During COVID-19 (Re-release)
Content Warning: suicide, suicidal ideation. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline - USA: 800-273-TALK (8255); The Canada Suicide Prevention Service: 1 833-456-4566; For suicide hotlines in various countries visit: https://ymhc.ngo/resources/international-suicide-lines.
We’re returning to a live webinar we hosted on January 28, 2021 with guest experts Dr. Elizabeth Cauffman, Dr. Christopher Drapeau, and Laura Sanders Morris. The webinar was moderated by Charlotte Witvoet, a high school student from Indiana. With May being Mental Health Awareness month in the United States, it felt like a good time to revisit this conversation.
We appreciated hearing these experts distinguish between normal teen mood changes and more concerning signs of depression, including when it’s time to get help for your teen. Plus our teen moderator gave us a reality check about what teens actually think about the strategies discussed.
In this episode about teen mental health:
How can parents know when their teen might have crossed a line from being depressed to potentially being suicidal? What should parents do if their child expresses suicidal ideation?
What signs of depression or suicide should we be looking for in our teens? How do we know when to take their comments about suicide seriously?
How do you engage with a teen daily when they’re avoiding you or spending all their time in their room?
What do I do if my teen says they’re not hungry and won’t sit down with us for family meals?
How do parents know when it’s pandemic boredom that their teen is experiencing versus something more serious like depression? What are some key signs that parents - or teachers - should be looking out for?
Additional Resources
Are the kids alright? (The California Partners Project)
Arrested Development: Adolescent Development & Juvenile Justice by Elizabeth Cauffman (TEDxUCIrvine)
Meet the Panelists & Moderator
Elizabeth Cauffman, Ph.D.
Dr. Elizabeth Cauffman is a Professor in the Department of Psychological Science at the University of California, Irvine and holds courtesy appointments in the Department of Criminology, Law & Society, the School of Education, and the School of Law. Dr. Cauffman received her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Temple University and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Center on Adolescence at Stanford University. She has published over 100 articles, chapters, and books on a range of topics in the study of contemporary adolescence, including adolescent brain development, risk-taking and decision-making, parent-adolescent relationships, and juvenile justice. Findings from Dr. Cauffman’s research were incorporated into the American Psychological Association’s amicus briefs submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court in Roper v. Simmons, which abolished the juvenile death penalty, and in both Graham v. Florida and Miller v. Alabama, which placed limits on the use of life without parole as a sentence for juveniles. As part of her larger efforts to help research inform practice and policy, she served as a member of the MacArthur Foundation’s Research Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice as well as the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's Committee on the Neurobiological and Socio-behavioral Science of Adolescent Development and Its Applications. Dr. Cauffman currently directs the Center for Psychology & Law as well as the Masters in Legal & Forensic Psychology at UCI.
Christopher Drapeau, Ph.D.
Dr. Christopher Drapeau is a licensed psychologist and the state suicide prevention director for the state of Indiana. Most recently, he was a university research professor at Valparaiso University and director of their SAMHSA GLS Campus Suicide Prevention Grant project. At Valpo, Dr. Drapeau regularly taught school psychology and clinical mental health counseling graduate courses, which included courses focused on understanding and preventing suicide and K-12 school crisis assessment and intervention. He has provided clinical psychological services in university counseling centers and outpatient psychology clinics and school psychological services in suburban and rural school districts and has developed clinical specialties in the areas of suicide risk assessment and management, behavioral sleep medicine, and parent management training. In addition to working as a psychologist and overseeing suicide prevention efforts in Indiana, Dr. Drapeau serves as an Adjunct Faculty Member at the Indiana University Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health where he publishes research broadly focused on sleep and suicide.
Laura Sanders Morris
Laura Sanders Morris is the Director of Policy and Programs at California Partners Project. Laura has earned a solid reputation for innovative projects combining research driven decision making, media strategy, and make-it-happen spirit focused on building relationships. Her collaborations with Disney, Nike,Time Warner and Meridian Health identifying social responsibility opportunities and developing strategies, led to programming initiatives that have supported both internal stakeholders and external community based organizations. As a skilled mediator, Laura has designed and conducted workshops on conflict resolution, team building, and visioning sessions for students, families and non profit organizations such as KQED and Jack and Jill of America,Inc. With a sustained commitment to socially responsible outcomes Laura has served on national and local boards advocating for children, gender and race equity. Laura is a former advisory board member for Dress for Success and national board member for Step Up Women’s Network. She currently serves on the board of trustees for Cathedral School for Boys and the advisory board of Wah Mei School. Recently, Laura transferred her passion for education and media to the pursuit of an advanced degree in education leadership focusing her doctoral research on the role of parents and equity in online learning. Laura lives in San Francisco with her husband Ken and their two sons.
Charlotte Witvoet
Our moderator, Charlotte Witvoet is a seventeen-year-old who has struggled her whole life with mental illness. After years of mental hospitals and therapy, she is on a road to recovery and wants to share her coping skills and story with other young adults. In 2019, she started her own part-time Etsy business and, in 2020, she published a young adult novel diving into the struggle of mental illness, Paint my Body Red. During this pandemic, Charlotte has filled her time and attempted to stay mentally healthy by spending extra time with her dog, making TikToks, and dressing up to go to the grocery store. She continues to be an advocate for mental health, LGBTQ+ equality, and sexual assault survivors.