ERIC Number: EJ1310471
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2021
Pages: 23
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: EISSN-2155-5834
EISSN: N/A
Elevating Mental Health Disparities and Building Psychosocial Resilience among BIPOC Children and Youth to Broaden the Climate and Health Discourse
Patel, Surili Sutaria; Robb, Katherine; Pluff, C.; Maldonado, Evelyn; Tatar, Grace; Williams, Tia
Journal of Applied Research on Children, v12 n1 Article 3 2021
The co-occurring crises of climate change, a global pandemic, and the social justice movement has put demands on psychosocial resilience. The country and global community has witnessed that those who contribute the least to climate change are the most impacted, and that black, indigenous, and people of color bear the health and financial burdens brought on by a changing climate. Given that eco-anxiety is on the rise amongst young people, such increases in awareness building have not yielded action at the speed and scale necessary to protect the most climate-sensitive among us: children and youth. Raising healthy children and youth is not divorced from nurturing mental health and wellness. Through a literature review of peer reviewed and gray literature, as well as expert interviews, the paper demonstrates the imperative to acknowledge and address contemporary needs of mental health in children and youth due to the co-occurring crises. It is time for a national effort to prioritize building psychosocial resilience in children and youth. It is essential to center psychosocial resilience through these various levers on the lives of BIPOC children and youth who experience disproportionate negative effects of one or more crises exacerbated by historic, structural and current environmental injustices. Not only is it imperative to expedite just and equitable actions to protect a world borrowed from children and generations to come, it is a responsibility to ensure those generations have the social and emotional tools to thrive.
Descriptors: Resilience (Psychology), Mental Health, Minority Group Children, Climate, Anxiety, Disproportionate Representation, Natural Disasters, Early Experience, Research
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A