The COVID-19 pandemic has created a storm of stress that has nearly doubled the number of children who suffer from behavioral health issues like depression or anxiety, recent studies have shown. Some experts say the stress isn’t automatically going to go away as masks come off.

UCHealth launched “Navigating The Seas of Stress,” a three-part video series created to help parents and children better identify when stress has become an issue and introduce a variety of tools that can help the child cope with the symptoms of depression or anxiety before it escalates to a more serious behavioral health issue.

Dr. Kathy Sigda, a licensed clinical psychologist who provides mental health services to children and adolescents at UCHealth Mountain Crest Behavioral Health in Fort Collins, is concerned about the mental health of all children as the pandemic approaches its two-year mark. She is hopeful that the video series will provide families with some much-needed support today and in the future.

“While many of the pandemic-related restrictions are being lifted, which is wonderful, we may be able to get back to a place where we can see each other’s whole faces and interact a little more normally,” Sigda said. “The mental health and developmental impact of this won’t disappear overnight. We expect to see ongoing problems in some of our most vulnerable populations, including kids, with anxiety and stress and even depression related to living this way for the last two years.”

Video series addresses COVID-19 stress in kids

The series was produced in partnership with CSI Films and made possible by a grant from students in Walt Clark Middle School’s Give Next program, a student-led grant program managed by Bohemian Foundation.