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How New York City's Public Libraries Adapted to COVID-19


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Libraries have mostly been empty, but active (photo: John McCarten/City Council)


Last month, the New York City Council’s Committee on Cultural Affairs and Libraries held an oversight hearing on the city’s public libraries and COVID-19. The committee, chaired by Queens Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer, heard testimony from Anthony Marx, the President, and CEO of New York Public Library, which is the system for Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island; President and CEO of Brooklyn Public Library Linda Johnson; and President and CEO of Queens Public Library Dennis Walcott. The discussion touched on library funding and finances, and how libraries have adjusted during the pandemic, which shut their buildings down for months earlier this year and continues to significantly impact their operations.

“Libraries are the most democratic and one of the most important institutions that we have in this world,” said Van Bramer in his opening remarks. “The onset of the covid pandemic has not only revealed the extent to which people rely on libraries, but in this moment where people are desperate for normalcy, stability, safety, and also craving information, while libraries are not as open physically to some, they continue to provide invaluable services in every way they possibly could.”

At a City Council budget hearing in March, just before the coronavirus outbreak took hold of the city, the heads of the three library systems presented their fiscal year 2021 funding needs to the Council, which negotiates the budget with the mayor. They requested fairly modest additional increases from the city for both operational and capital expenses, some of which would go to protecting extended library hours, staff, and collections, as well as $10 million in new funding “critical to enhancing equity, offering greater access to libraries for children and teens, and helping support the City’s educational priorities,” according to the New York Public Library website.

The additional funding would also cover a waiver of late fines for children and teenagers, as well as the costs of individual branch programs to support literacy in toddlers and pre-kindergarten students, the cost of repairs, and the costs of databases, ebooks, and other materials.

The city’s public library systems also rely on additional funding from patrons, such as monthly donations, memberships, and foundations. The New York Public Library, for example, received a “leadership gift” of $1 million from the New York Life Foundation and developed partnerships with entities such as HBO, Bank of America, and Bloomberg Philanthropies. The Brooklyn Public Library has corporate support from companies including Whole Foods Market, Goldman Sachs, and Con Edison, and Queens Public Library receives support from TD Bank, among others.

But city budget negotiations are always tense -- the public libraries, however important to the city’s civic fabric, are recipients of less than 1% of New York City’s fiscal year 2021 budget, according to a note on the budget from the Council’s Committee on Cultural Affairs and Libraries -- and discussions were ongoing.

Then the covid crisis hit, the city budget was decimated, and the libraries were deeply hurt like so many other institutions.

At the November hearing, Johnson said she is worried that Brooklyn Public Library won’t have the resources it needs and is very concerned about both this year and into 2021 and beyond. Brooklyn Public Library has reprioritized and shifted spending, “especially in respect to digital collections and virtual programming,” Johnson said.

At New York Public Library, Marx said he has had to cut 95 positions due to a “reduced budget,” but they haven’t had “the mass layoffs we all feared.”

“Basically we’re at this, sort of serving the public as much as we can physically, being safe, massively increased virtual, increased costs,” Marx said. “Basically we’re able to hold that for now. But, if big cuts come, or further cuts come, we’re not going to be able to hold all of that. It’s a physics problem.”

“We got some cuts from the city, and we rely, more than our peers, on other private sources, that all gets hit at the same time,” Marx said.

He also cited increased “pandemic-related costs,” including on security and personal protective equipment (PPE). “We also have staff to accommodate because they simply can’t get to work,” Marx said, and some have “caretaker situations.”

Marx said he has been looking for ways to save money, such as investing in more digital resources and shifting education expenditures online.

Safety Measures
Since the shutdown of the city’s public libraries in March, branches have shifted their resources more fully online. Each of the three systems has increased the use of ebooks, audiobooks, and apps, as well as holding classes, town halls, and meetings virtually through Zoom.

Although no public libraries are fully operational, many do offer “grab and go” services, according to New York Public Library’s website. This entails socially-distanced checkouts and returns where patrons can pre-request items online or by phone, pick up their items at available locations with their library cards, and then return them to drop-off bins where the items are placed in quarantine for 96 hours before being made available to other patrons.

The rising number of COVID-19 cases has impacted Queens Public Libraries' attempt to reopen. “While we have been planning to begin offering public computer appointments...,” Walcott said, “in light of the rising number of COVID-19 cases in and around the city, we will delay the computer services until an appropriate time.”

In Queens, said Walcott, there was a security guard whose family member had tested positive for COVID-19. “We put our protocols in place and then moved folks out of that,” he said of the branch. Queens Public Library then “did a deep cleaning, but we haven’t had any positive cases of our staff directly.” The library also has “pods of staff,” said Walcott, in which they have “various teams of staff in place. (If) someone should test positive; then we’ll move that entire team out, shutdown the library, do the cleaning, then have a second-team come in place.” Although this provides a more “complex” system, said Walcott, it also provides a “more safe system.” 

At the time of the hearing, New York Public Library had recently moved its research libraries at 14 locations to “phase two” of reopening, which included “adding browsing and computer use,” both at very limited capacity, said Marx. “That was going smoothly, we had worked for months for that,” he said, but “it became obvious that the numbers in Staten Island were going very much in the wrong direction, we moved the three phase twos in Staten Island back to phase one.”

“Unfortunately, we concluded that the numbers were consistently going in the wrong direction,”  Marx continued, discussing the city’s covid situation and the library system more broadly. As cases began to rise throughout the city, New York Public Library “decided to move all of our phase two services, after only a week, back to phase one,” said Marx.

While the New York Public Library had no known transmission, said Marx, they did have seven staff members test positive for COVID-19. He said New York Public Library “used exactly the same protocols” that Queens Public Library took. And when asked what safety measures New York Public Library was taking to assess when it could begin to reopen again, Marx said New York Public Library is “using a variety of metrics, consulting experts.” While it relies on the advice of experts, Marx said, “we should always be a half a step more conservative than the expert advice.”

“If we make a mistake, on the side of erring on safety, I’ll live with that,” Marx said.

In Brooklyn, said Johnson, “we’ve had one maintainer who was diagnosed with COVID-19. He worked at the Central Library, and we immediately put the protocols in place,” as the two other library systems have.

Brooklyn Public Library
Since March, the staff at Brooklyn Public Libraries has been “running around with our hair on fire,” said Johnson. Although libraries were closed, said Johnson, “we found new ways to serve.” Brooklyn Public Library, which, before March, was the largest free Wi-Fi provider in the borough, according to Johnson, kept Wi-Fi on 24 hours a day, seven days a week, while the buildings were closed. People could then access the internet from just outside the buildings, so those who “do not have broadband internet access consistently available at home have relied on the libraries as a vital place to connect to the world,” according to Brooklyn Public Library’s website.

In addition to constantly keeping Wi-Fi on, Brooklyn Public Library launched “Bklyn Reach,” a Wi-Fi service at select branches located in Brownsville, Bushwick, Coney Island, Fort Greene, Red Hook, and Flatbush that extends Wi-Fi reach to up to 300 feet from the libraries. “Whether people are in the library or not,” the website explains, “Brooklynites can use these networks for free to get online for school, work, and more.”

The select branches are also equipped with furnished outdoor library spaces loaned from the Department of Transportation, Johnson said. “With more than 1,000 people gathering outside on a single day to try and catch the signal coming through our windows and doors,” said Johnson, who said Brooklyn Public Library has become a key source of Wi-Fi and an advocate for internet access in the borough.

The Brooklyn Public Library also expanded its digital collection, which now contains over 400,000 ebooks, audiobooks, videos, and subscriptions, she added.

From mid-March to September, Brooklyn Public Library hosted more than 4,000 programs online, Johnson said. The programs that the library held aimed to “foster literacy, civil engagement, and social justice” and included events such as “the 28th Amendment Initiative,” a 32-part Zoom town hall, where “hundreds of Brooklynites brainstormed the next amendment to the Constitution” and what it should include.

The Justice Initiatives at Brooklyn Public Library and community organizations and agencies worked together to produce a “series of Know Your Rights workshops,” Johnson said. The first workshop, which was held on October 22 focused on the right to vote, “with an emphasis on New York and particularly on the rights of the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated to full participation in the democratic process,” according to Brooklyn Public Library’s website.

While unemployment throughout Brooklyn reached as high as 20.5%in June, according to the Department of Labor, Brooklyn Public Library made its Business and Career Center available remotely. Their center includes virtual resume and career help to help aid New Yorkers in finding employment. As well as a guide of “economic resources to help navigate the COVID-19 crisis,” according to the library’s website. The guide includes “free legal advice from the New York State Bar Association for workers whose unemployment insurance claim has been denied,” contact information for the Worker Rights Hotline, and resources for undocumented immigrants.

The library also added new initiatives that “prioritized programs that foster dialogue about race and social equity and that center Black and Indigenous writers and thinkers,” said Johnson. “We also pledged to ensure that our collection as a whole reflects more Black and Indigenious viewpoints.”

While schools across the city held remote classes, the library has held virtual sessions for children, such as “multi-Lingual Storytimes,” “homework help” sessions, a program where children in grades 1 through 8 can be paired with a trained volunteer to receive help with “assignments in math, science, social studies, and other topics,” according to Brooklyn Public Library’s website.

As COVID-19 resulted in the death of more than 20,000 New Yorkers, Brooklyn Public Library provided grief support groups to those who have lost loved ones throughout the pandemic. The library also hosted mental health-related programs, including support groups.

Brooklyn Public Library has partnered with the New York City Health + Hospital Test and Trace Corp. “A Test and Trace grant has allowed library staff to distribute 270,000 masks,” and provide information to over 19,000 Brooklyn residents about “essential resources, such as free testing sites and emergency food relief,” said Johnson.

Brooklyn Public Library also holds weekly Virtual Health Fairs, which provide information about COVID-19, testing sites, and free face-covering distribution sites, as well as information on the flu, “in order to help our patrons navigate the constantly evolving information regarding testing sites, insurance coverage, and more,” said Johnson.

The Test and Trace Corp partnership also includes the use of BPL’s Williamsburg and Borough Park locations to distribute PPE, and outdoor pop-up covid testing sites at Paerdegat and Brighton Beach libraries, said Johnson.

“Early in the pandemic, when PPE was scarce, we worked in partnership with Columbia University to print face shields for health care workers using 3D printers from our branches,” she explained.

In addition to providing support to health-care workers, during the summer, Brooklyn Public Library used five branches to act as cooling centers for New Yorkers, and 18 branches were used as polling sites during New York’s primary and general elections, said Johnson. 

The library partnered with the Department of Correction to “provide incarcerated New Yorkers with a virtual library via tablets,” and with the City’s Department of Youth and Community Development to “host learning labs” at six library branches where K-8 students will “be able to access remote learning and be able to enjoy an enriching environment when they cannot be in school,” said Johnson.

“Public libraries, trusted by every generation, in every neighborhood, are uniquely suited to help rebuild our social and civic infrastructure and ensure that infrastructure serves all of us,” said Johnson.

Still, BPL still “sorely needs capital improvement,” said Johnson. “We have managed to forge ahead with a few self-managed projects,” which include the new Greenpoint Library and Environmental Education Center and The Center For Brooklyn History “which will allow all New Yorkers free and open access to the most expansive collection of Brooklyn history in the world,” she said of the acquisition of Brooklyn Historical Society.

New York Public Library (Manhattan, Staten Island, the Bronx)
In the wake of the closure of public library buildings, New York Public Library has “continued to provide equitable and accessible services, many of which are virtual,” said Marx. According to Marx, New York Public Library has seen 45,000 new library card sign-ups since March and 2.1 million digital checkouts. The library system for Manhattan, Staten Island, and the Bronx has also seen 65,000 new users on its app, SimplyE, which provides readers with access to free books and audiobooks, and close to 1 million database item requests and 25,000 item holds.

New York Public Library also provided online access to their research library. “You can request any document, we’ll send it to you,” said Marx. The library has begun to negotiate a “research ebook collection available to anyone in the world,” which would contain between 3 and 4 million volumes of books. It also “massively increased” its database, according to Marx.

And New York Public Library is using its research library to “pump out what people are so eager for,” such as their launch of the Schomburg Center Black Liberation Reading List, which includes 95 books by Black authors.

“It’s just been extraordinary to see my colleagues remove all the constraints and offer everything that we can digitally,” said Marx.

The digital opportunities include a myriad of different events and information for New York City residents. Such as information on wellness, housing, and food security, and career services, like Spotlight On: LinkedIn, an event held on December 1 where “participants share their screen to show off their resume or LinkedIn profile and practice interviewing to get feedback from the NYPL career coaches and the whole group,” according to the New York Public Library website. The library also holds financial counseling sessions virtually and by appointment and speaks to individuals about their “current financial situation, including general money management, budgeting, saving, banking, retirement planning, and more,” the library’s website says.

The library has also moved its educational programs entirely virtual. Through events like Children’s Book Discussion, held by librarians at Columbus library, where children ages 3 through 12 are invited to talk about the books they are currently reading and, “accompanied by a caregiver will be able to share their thoughts about the characters they meet and exciting plots they’ve explored,” according to the website. During the summer, in support of distance learning, New York Public Library also distributed 40,000 reading kits to students throughout the city.

New York Public Library knows “that too many New Yorkers are on the wrong side of the digital divide,” said Marx. 

When NYPL “can help some people get connected, when we can do hotspots, that’s great. But I’m sorry,” Marx continued. “This is 2020. The fact that we live in the information capital of the world and millions of New Yorkers simply can’t go to school now, do their schoolwork, do their jobs, apply to jobs because we don’t believe that’s a minimum, basic utility we owe the citizens, we can have this testimony, we can do whatever we want. But we have to solve this problem. This is a fundamental failing of this city at this point — to provide the basic services that we need the city to provide for us to be able to do the work that we need to do. That could not be more clear now.”

Marx said “the crisis resulted in the halt on all capital projects in March, including 62 active capital projects.” Since then, said Marx, 16 of the projects have been restarted. “We continue to work with the City’s Office of Management and Budget as well as the CDC.”

“It’s been an amazingly difficult and challenging year,” he said. “Our colleagues have stepped up to the plate. We were the most used civic facilities in this city. We are now the front and center for what we can do physically and what is happening virtually in terms of helping with learning, information, access, in these times.” 

Queens Public Library
The Queens Public Library adapted their in-person programming to “fit the virtual world” said Walcott. “The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted every citizen, business, and government in the world,” said Walcott, “and changed the way we interact with one another and has forced us to reconsider all the things we take for granted as normal.”

Closing Queens Public Library buildings on March 16 was a “difficult decision to make,” said Walcott. “It was a difficult decision because I know that hundreds of thousands of people rely on our collections and free programs and services on a daily basis...However, it was a decision that had to be made in order to save lives.”

As the city began to rapidly close, said Walcott, in the “first two weeks of the city-wide shutdown,” which began on March 22, Queens Public Library knew that it had to “rapidly alter our service delivery mechanisms in order to serve the public.” These mechanisms included setting up an online calendar that offered virtual activities, including “Children Story Time” and “Ask the Census Bureau,” a Facebook Live question-and-answer segment with Jeff T. Behler, the New York Regional Director for the U.S. Census Bureau, said Walcott.

Since then, Queens Public Library has hosted over 5,700 programs, Walcott touted, which have been attended by over 100,000 participants. One event, the Adult Learning Program, has hosted over 100 virtual courses and 700 individuals registered for the New Americans Program’s English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) 2020 virtual fall semester, Walcott said.

Queens Public Library has also created “QPL At Night,” a “virtual nightlife hotspot for virtual entertainment, civic engagement, and learning geared towards a millennial audience,” said Walcott. There was also a panel discussion led by Walcott called “To Be Black in America,” a conversation about racism in America with New York State Attorney General Letitia James and SUNY Downstate President Dr. Wayne Riley. The discussion focused on racial disparities during COVID-19 and the daily lives of minority groups in America.

The library also partnered with BrainFuse, “one of the nation’s leading online tutoring providers,” said Walcott, “to broaden access to free homework help.” This partnership includes free live online tutoring for children from grades K-12, as well as test preparation and homework help. The partnership also helps “adult learners,” he said, and includes resources such as professional resume and cover letter assistance as well as preparation for the U.S. citizenship test, and a “Microsoft Office Essential Skills Series,” according to Queens Public Library’s website.

In addition to programs, Queens Public Library also moved 25,000 ebooks, emagazines, audiobooks, and videos to their digital platform with a circulation increase during the first six weeks of over 104%, said Walcott.

“As we moved to a more virtual world, however, it laid bare the disparities in regards to the broadband connectivity in the local communities we serve,” said Walcott.

Similar to the other two public library systems, “Queens Public Library serves as a critical lifeline for individuals who do not have” access to Wi-Fi, said Walcott. In areas like Southeast Queens, said Walcott, “approximately 43% of the households are without broadband access.” Queens Public Library, he said, “serves as a critical lifeline for individuals who do not have these services.” During the first quarter of the fiscal year, the Queens Public Library recorded nearly 118,000 Wi-Fi sessions, said Walcott. “Our customers rely on our free Wi-Fi services for a plethora of reasons,” such as staying connected with friends and family. Customers also rely on the Queens Public Libraries’ Wi-Fi services to pay their bills and to attend school remotely.

“But that’s still not acceptable, as far as the need out there in the public,” said Walcott.

Queens Public Library has extended their Wi-Fi at 20 locations to allow anyone, whether they have a library card or not, to be able to access broadband services using their personal devices up to 150 yards from their buildings, said Walcott. Queens Public Library’s Wi-Fi is available 24/7 “and the public is taking full advantage of it,” he said.

Queens Public Library also launched its newly redesigned mobile app. Which includes an “improved user-friendly interface, allowing customers to navigate with ease,” as well as “includes the ability to search and scan books, find nearby locations, and read, watch, and listen to content directly from the app,” Walcott said.

“As all of us have confronted the COVID-19 pandemic and the manifestations of racial injustice across the country, and here at home, New York City endured unprecedented heartache, economic hardship, and turmoil. In developing our reopening plans, there was one thing we all knew: the world would now need and demand more from libraries than ever before,” said Walcott.

The measures that city’s public library systems have taken in order to provide crucial support to New Yorkers is “incredible,” said Council Member Van Bramer and “demonstrates to the world just how indispensable libraries are."

“If in the middle of this pandemic,” Van Bramer said, people are still visiting public libraries, “it just talks about how desperate people are for the information, for that connectivity to a place they trust so much.”

“I hope that everyone remembers what you have done, what you are doing, and what you will continue doing as we go through further phases of this pandemic and hopefully towards an end to it,” Van Bramer told the library system leaders. “When we do talk about the budget issues, the City of New York as it relates to public libraries, we need you now more than ever.”

“You have come through for the City of New York more than ever,” he said, “and are literally saving lives."

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by Anna Conkling, Gotham Gazette

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Kathryn Garcia Officially Launches Campaign for New York City Mayor


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Kathryn Garcia as Sanitation Commissioner (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)


Kathryn Garcia, the former commissioner of the city’s Department of Sanitation, officially launched her 2021 mayoral campaign on Thursday, pitching her credentials as an experienced government official who has time and again been called on by the mayor to clean up municipal messes.

During her six years as sanitation commissioner, Garcia had the monumental task of overseeing trash pickup, snow removal, and recycling operations for a city of 8.5 million residents and many tens of millions of commuters and other visitors each year. But she’s also been a fixer for crises outside that portfolio. Mayor Bill de Blasio placed her in charge of tackling an emergency of lead exposure among young children, appointed her interim chair and CEO of the struggling New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) and, during the coronavirus pandemic, made her the emergency “food czar” responsible for delivering more 130 million meals to hungry New Yorkers.

“Those who have worked with me over the years know me as someone who gets things done,” Garcia said in a live Zoom announcement on Thursday afternoon. “I've been the go-to crisis manager and the woman who can't say no to a tough gig, and then does it well.”

Garcia quit her job earlier this year after the city budget slashed funding to the sanitation department and the mayor threatened layoffs to fill a major budget hole, and as she was eyeing her own bid to replace de Blasio. In the time since, she has been openly critical about the mayor’s management style as she offers her own alternative. “I believe the next mayor will either make or break this city,” Garcia said Thursday. “In the depths of overlapping crises, we must still have bold vision, and to execute on that vision, we must have an experienced hand on the wheel. And you won't find a candidate who has more experience in New York City Government than me.”

In her announcement, Garcia said her three top priorities would be “a strong recovery, excellent basic services, and fighting climate change.” During her remarks as well as several videos posted to the campaign’s YouTube page, she outlined several specific policy positions and proposals.

To promote economic growth, she promised to create pipelines from universities to jobs, provide free childcare for families making under $70,000 a year, build universal broadband access, and reduce fines and fees for small businesses.

She said she would bring back the city’s composting program, convert Rikers Island into a composting and renewable energy zone, electrify all city school buses, and install more than 3,000 electric car chargers across the city. She pledged a five-borough resiliency plan.

She promised to achieve universal literacy for children by the end of second grade within her first term.

She vowed to change policing in the city “from a warrior culture to more of a guardian culture” by increasing the age of new recruits from 21 to 25, ensure more cops live in the city and increasing implicit bias training.

She promised to ease how New Yorkers get around the city, including by creating more bus and bike lanes.

Garcia is one of three former de Blasio administration officials, all of whom are women and first-time candidates for any elected office, who are seeking the Democratic nomination in the June primary, which will likely determine who becomes the next mayor because of the overwhelming Democratic voter enrollment advantage in the city. Former counsel to the mayor Maya Wiley and former Veterans Services Commissioner Loree Sutton are also running to replace the term-limited Democratic mayor.

Other candidates in the Democratc field include Comptroller Scott Stringer, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, former Citigroup executive Ray McGuire, City Council Member Carlos Menchaca, former Obama cabinet secretary Shaun Donovan, former nonprofit executive Dianne Morales, military veteran-turned-entrepreneur Zach Iscol, and others.

The core of Garcia’s message is that she is an experienced manager who knows how government works, and doesn’t, and can streamline the city’s bureaucracy and ensure that basic services are delivered more efficiently and effectively. She pledged to focus on core issues like “clean, safe streets and transit, affordable housing, good schools and police reform.”

“I'm running because we have to get the basics right, and we have no room for error and no time for learning on the job,” she said. Garcia's pitch echoes to some extent those being made by Stringer, who’s promising to “manage the hell out of this city,” Adams, who is promising “real-time governance” to eliminate inefficiency, and others, including Donovan, Sutton, and Iscol.

It remains to be seen how effective a platform based on no-nonsense management of government will be in a primary where an ascendant left wing of the Democratic Party is especially active and voters have many choices in a diverse field. Garcia announced the endorsement of the Uniformed Sanitationmen's Association, the labor union with more than 6,000 members that she worked closely with as sanitation commissioner.

The race will see the first citywide use of ranked-choice voting, a new system that allows voters to rank up to five candidates by order of preference and forces candidates to campaign throughout the city and appeal to as many voters as possible, in the hopes of snagging as many second and third place votes as possible beyond the most-desired first place votes.

“I am incredibly good at creating very effective teams that really maximize a lot of people's talents,” Garcia said in an at-length September interview on the Max & Murphy podcast, just after she left city government. “There is not infighting on things that I work on. And the second thing is, I'm extremely clear about my expectations and I'm extremely clear about the fact that I expect accountability. You need to produce.”

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by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

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City's Black and Hispanic Youth Face Dire Need for Mental Health Care


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Students back in school amid a pandemic (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


The COVID-19 pandemic has had profound effects for children across New York City and State, as well as their families, like the loss of a loved one, economic distress, food insecurity, and the shutdown of school buildings, switch to remote learning, and lack of in-person social connections.

During the first five months of the pandemic, an estimated 4,200 of 4 million children in the state lost a parent or caregiver to coronavirus, a rate of more than one out of every 1,000, according to a report by the United Hospital Fund and Boston Consulting Group released at the end of September. Over half of those children live in the Bronx, Brooklyn, or Queens. 

The report found Black and Hispanic children were disproportionately impacted, with one of every 600 Black children and one of every 700 Hispanic children losing a parent or caregiver, compared to one of every 1,400 Asian children and one of every 1,500 white children. 

The damage can be severe and long-lasting, with 23% of those children at risk of entering foster or kinship care and 50% at risk of falling into poverty, according to the report.

“How well a kid does after the loss of a parent really depends on the strength of their family support and also to some degree their financial stability,” said Dr. Jennifer Havens, a leader of the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at NYU Langone Health and Director of Child and Adolescent Behavioral Health for the Office of Behavioral Health at NYC Health + Hospitals, in an interview with Gotham Gazette.

The report found that between March and July, as a result of the pandemic, 325,000 children across the state were driven into or near poverty, which was linked to a severe jump in unemployment. Over 1 million children in the state had at least one parent become unemployed. Across the country, mental health-related visits to the emergency departments for children increased 24% and for teens increased 31% during March and April this year, compared to 2019, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported.

Access to mental health care for young people, especially Black and Hispanic youth, is more important than ever. Yet, there are major issues with access, and the ramifications are already dire. While the de Blasio administration recently announced new steps to provide more mental health support to young people, especially in areas of the city hardest hit by COVID-19, large gaps remain and the scope of the problem may not be fully realized.

Suicide rates among youth and teens are higher than ever, and for ages 10-24, it’s the second leading cause of death behind unintentional injury. For Black youth, suicide rates are increasing faster compared to other racial groups, according to the American Psychological Association

Black and Hispanic communities face critical roadblocks when it comes to accessing mental health care, such as lack of availability and of adequate health insurance, as well as language barriers, racism and other biases, and discrimination in treatment settings. Within their communities, people of color face higher levels of stigma for mental health challenges and for seeking treatment, and they are less likely to seek treatment as a result.

Tackling these disparities within mental health care and getting help to those who are most vulnerable is crucial, Dr. Havens said in the interview. “COVID is hitting low-wage earners the hardest, much harder than high-wage earners, so they’re already living on the edge, particularly in New York City, where it is so expensive to live,” she said. “And then to lose a parent or having a parent lose a job, it adds up to a lot of pressure and stress on a kid.” 

Racial stressors also contribute to increased anxiety and depression, said Dr. Aaron Reilford, Director of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn and a professor in the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. “On one hand while it's really powerful for a lot of youth and families who are engaging in protests in regards to issues of police brutality, on some level it serves as a retraumatization,” said Dr. Reilford, at a Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York panel on children’s behavioral health in the age of COVID-19, of dealing with the fact that one can be subject to violence due to their skin color. 

Changes in schooling, namely remote learning and blended remote/in-person instruction, may also be taking a mental health toll on students. According to a survey by Education Trust-New York, an education policy and advocacy organization, there is low satisfaction with remote learning among all parents but especially parents of color.

Mayor Bill de Blasio and city schools Chancellor Richard Carranza recently said that while the Department of Education has gotten hundreds of thousands of internet-enabled devices into kids’ hands, eight-plus months into the pandemic there were still roughly 60,000 students who had requested devices but did not yet have them. Only during the covid crisis did de Blasio order wireless internet to be installed in all homeless shelters with children living in them.

Attendance is also lower than in pre-COVID days, with an average of 85% for both remote and in-person instruction, according to numbers released on October 26 by the de Blasio administration, and there are major questions about how much engagement is happening for those who do “attend” remote school. About 300,000 students attended some in-person schooling, through a mix of in-person and remote classes, before city schools were temporarily closed on November 19 due to rising covid rates and de Blasio established a new plan for buildings to reopen and which students would be prioritized for in-person learning. 

The high number of students not engaging in remote learning is striking, said Alice Bufkin, director of policy for child and adolescent health at Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York, in an interview, referring to an attendance rate of 87.9% for online classes, which some say is misleadingly high because of questions around what counts as present. “Those are the children most at risk of not having access to the internet or being in a crowded household. Maybe they don’t have the privacy they need or the device they need,” she said. “There are all these challenges disproportionately impacting Black and brown children who are already facing challenges from covid.”

New York State spends the most per student on education in the country, $28,000 annually on average, Chalkbeat reported. During the 2017-2018 year, there were about 2,800 full-time guidance counselors and 1,300 full-time social workers within the city school system, according to a report by the Children’s Defense Fund of New York, for more than 1 million students at roughly 1,600 schools. The report states about 41 public schools didn’t have a guidance counselor or social worker, 141 schools didn’t have a guidance counselor, and 241 schools didn’t have a full-time guidance counselor. The American School Counselor Association recommends a ratio of 1 counselor to 250 students, but at the time about 900 New York City schools out of 1,600 had surpassed the ratio. 

The lack of guidance counselors and social workers can have long-lasting effects on the city’s youth, more so during the stressors of a deadly pandemic, massive unemployment increases, school shutdowns, increasing violent crime, and a movement for racial justice. Not only do counselors provide behavioral health services and resources, they address a wide range of issues and challenges students face and assist them in applying for middle or high school and college. Social workers are among those who can both provide and recommend treatment and services for students.

Stepping in to support children’s behavioral health and providing resources while they’re young makes a difference, said Bufkin. “Children are resilient. If we can get them early enough and provide them with the support that they need, we can see them recover and go on to have healthy and successful lives,” said Bufkin.

Access to adequate mental health care within the school system is crucial, said Dr. Reilford, who is also a clinical assistant professor at NYU’s medical school. “For mental health services, in particular, you need to go where kids are,” said Dr. Reilford in the interview with Gotham Gazette. “Kids are at school, so if you set up a system where you can actually engage kids and adolescents and provide treatment at the schools, while you won’t be able to hit everyone, you’re certainly hitting much more than if you just relied on them walking into a doctor’s office,”  he said.

In August, prior to schools reopening, the Department of Education released the Bridge to School plan to support wellness among students and school staff. At a press conference held by the mayor and chancellor, Deputy Chancellor LaShawn Robinson said 45,000 educators were trained in trauma-informed care and teletherapy was increased within the school system. 

To address the emotional toll of covid, school shutdowns, and more on students, de Blasio and First Lady Chirlane McCray announced on October 22 a new initiative to increase mental health support for students in neighborhoods hardest hit by the pandemic. Current mental health workers will undergo the School Mental Health Specialist Program, which was converted from an existing consultant program that hired licensed social workers to work with schools in improving their mental health resources and plans, to become specialists and provide trauma-informed group work to students across 350 schools. 

“Now, more than ever, we want all of our students to know that they are not alone, and there are compassionate, trained professionals ready to help them process anxiety, grief and trauma that may have intensified during the pandemic,” McCray said in a press release. “Parents and educators in our communities hardest hit by COVID-19 have called out for this kind of direct support and we are responding.”

The new initiative states specialists would begin assisting up to five schools in late October, as well as delivering mental health information to parents, caregivers, and school staff to address students’ needs. The city’s public schools are also partnering up with the city’s public hospital system, NYC Health + Hospitals, connecting 26 schools to outpatient mental health clinics where services such as ongoing therapy, psychiatric evaluation, medication management, and more are available. 

The specialist program is managed by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in partnership with the Department of Education and is overlooked by ThriveNYC. “The $8.7 million Fiscal Year 2021 budget for the Consultant Program will be entirely converted to support the Specialist program, with the new direct service model requiring no additional costs,” the press release states. The Mayor’s Fund, a city-affiliated nonprofit McCray chairs, eased the transition into the new program by raising $35,000 to cover training and material costs. 

In response to the alarming CDC numbers about increasing mental health-related visits to emergency departments for children, the Healthy Minds, Healthy Kids Campaign, a coalition of behavioral health advocates working towards high quality services for children in New York, pointed out that the situation is even more dire. “What’s worse, we know these alarming figures don’t paint the full picture of the tens of thousands of children grappling with increased anxiety and depression as a result of the unprecedented devastation, housing insecurity, social isolation, and disrupted schooling born from COVID-19,” the campaign said in a November statement.

The campaign asked the New York state government to address the mental health needs of children by ending budget cuts and increasing investments in behavioral health services, and closing the digital divide to ensure equitable access to telehealth services. 

“There’s an approach that the city and the state take, which is we’ll cut a little here in education, we’ll cut a little here in health and we'll cut a little in social services so that way they're not cutting too much from any one area. But the reality is, the families receiving those services are all the same families, and it’s affecting the same communities,” said Bufkin, referring to communities of color and low-income communities. 

The New York City Department of Education has faced challenges from the state. New York State was granted $716.9 million in federal aid to pass along to the city, but in April Governor Andrew Cuomo cut precisely $716.9 million in state funding from the city’s public schools, Chalkbeat reported, keeping the education budget stable. The state government also withheld 20% of local aid which resulted in no payments to school districts but that money was soon released after the teachers union sued the governor. With no bailout from the federal government, public schools could face immense cuts in funding in the near future, resulting in mass layoffs. 

The mayor had proposed around $642 million in budget cuts for schools back in April, but much of that funding was restored in the final adopted budget, according to Chalkbeat reporting, including restoration of proposed cuts like $100 million in Fair Student Funding, a program that finances schools in need, $11 million from Single Shepard, a counseling program for middle schoolers, and $5 million set aside for social workers in schools. 

Some cuts did get implemented in the budget, as Chalkbeat reported, including $40 million to school allocations that pay for services like social workers, restorative justice programs, and more. The borough field support offices that assist English language learners and students with disabilities also faced a $20 million reduction. 

Another budget cut directly impacting mental health services was the reduction of $6 million in community school contracts, which also lost a $3 million grant from the city. Community schools “offer wrap-around supports for students and families, including upstream prevention services like food pantries and benefit enrollment help, in addition to direct mental health services in the form of counselors, social workers and school-based mental health clinics,” according to a brief on budget cuts towards behavioral health services, on which Bufkin contributed.

“We certainly can't see an improvement in access,” Bufkin said, “if we are at the same time cutting back on the services we know are so important for children to get the behavioral support they need.”

***
By Afia Eama, Gotham Gazette
@afia_eam   

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