When New York City released its "Bridge to School" plan in late August, officials called on teachers to make students' mental health needs their top priority. "Many of our young people are in pain,” City officials wrote.
But as students finally resume classes – remotely this week and in classrooms next – they will find that many social workers and other mental health care providers have disappeared from school budgets.
Read MoreDoctors across New York State see a growing number of young people coming to hospitals with dangerous psychiatric emergencies.
It is a first sign, they say, of a looming mental health crisis among children and adolescents. And they warn that—unless the State makes radical changes—many young people will not be able to get the mental health care they need.
Read MoreCovid-19 has torn through the City's juvenile detention centers. Frantic parents say their kids should be sent home.
Read MoreOne unintended consequence of free, public preschool programs is the toll they can take on a community’s supply of child care for babies and toddlers. In some places, when public preschool programs for 3- and 4-year-olds grow, affordable child care for younger children shrinks. This analysis of enrollment data for the subsidized child care system suggests that in New York City, about the same number of infants and toddlers are receiving subsidized child care in child care centers and family child care programs as before the expansion of Pre-K-for-All. But other data and research which is inclusive of non-subsidized child care raises concerns that affordable infant and toddler care for low-income parents in New York City may indeed be at risk.
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