Overview September 2021∣Youth Hong Kong
Time for transitions l The pandemic has impacted everyone’s equilibrium and the new school year is beginning hesitantly.
l 疫情影響了學生的精神健康，新學年校園彌 漫著忐忑的氣氛。
l Missed friends, foregone celebrations and a year of disrupted education have combined to upset many students.
l 學生過去一年深受影響，包括未能跟朋友見 面、缺乏學校生活，以及教學模式轉變等。
l Support for them, their teachers and parents will help all to regain balance and wellness.
l 為學生提供精神健康支援，有助他們重新適 應校園生活。
After more than a year of pandemic-induced stress, isolation and anxiety, few people will be able to simply go back to normal. The process will take time. Indeed, mental health professionals and doctors are warning that young people everywhere are reporting more symptoms of anxiety and depression. Students’ lives have been upended. Their classes went online and they stayed at home, missing their social lives badly. Other young people have lost jobs or university places and everyone confronted isolation at some level, while struggling to find quiet places for work and or even a reliable internet connection. As students begin face-to-face classes again and COVID-19 vaccination rates rise, the community is hoping to return to a semblance of normal pre-pandemic life. The social interaction and collective activities that they have missed so much can start once more and the camaraderie between classmates can be rebuilt.
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Nevertheless, many people of all ages are experiencing some form of hesitancy about returning to old routines. None of us have been through a global pandemic before, so it’s completely understandable to be anxious about all the constant changes. After all, change and uncertainty are hard for many people even when there is no pandemic taking place.
While almost everyone has suffered an overload of some kind, school closures and social restrictions have meant that students facing exams and teachers who are also parents probably bore one of the heaviest loads, having to rapidly adopt classroom teaching and learning to online lessons to be done at home under parental supervision. It’s been a tough year, when both physical and psychological wellness have become more precious than ever.
Adjustment to a long period of mandatory maskwearing, social distancing and a limit to the number of people you could spend time with, have all taken their toll on our mental states and attitudes. Reacclimating to a former way of life, springing back into step at school is not a straightforward process and for parents who have spent more time than ever before with their children, there are added complications.
How can students who need support improve their sense of wellness? The Federation has developed services that address many dimensions of wellness. To begin with, there is physical wellness that relies on regular, balanced habits of exercise, nutrition and sleep. Emotional wellness is equally important, involving recognition of feelings that may be buried in the subconscious but which control reactions and behaviour.
