One health professional who works with primary and secondary children, and delivers mental health training to teachers for the Place2Be charity, gives a snapshot of how life in lockdown left many kids mentally scarred:
September should be an exciting time for children; a time of new uniforms and fresh starts.
But it's not been like that for vulnerable children who have suffered trauma in lockdown.
Children across the board seemed happy to be back in school but it's been a tentative return and staff report a calmness and lack of the usual playground arguments as pupils were bombarded by new rules and changes.
There was no waving at pals from windows or running about in the playground as they tried to take social distancing on board.
Now a couple of weeks on, they are beginning to relax and are opening up about their lockdown experiences.
Vulnerable children, including looked after children, are nervous and anxious and have missed the regularity of school, that feeling of stability and safety.
Some of the children we have been working with have gone back to violent imagery in play. This play is often lacking in empathy or compassion. It can involve emergency services failing to turn up, ‘bad guys’ getting away with crime and the suffering of loved ones.
It's the sort of thing where counsellors come out of sessions and say, 'that was really tough'. It's not the sort of empathetic play based on sharing and engagement that's encouraged in schools. It's like they've gone back to the beginning.
The children are showing their frustration with the lack of routine and security.
We've also got children who are going through especially difficult times, a five year old whose mum has cancer and he is terrified of taking the virus back to his mum, and year three and four children who have witnessed domestic violence and are glad to be back but still very anxious.
During lockdown we had a lot of cause for concern with secondary schools, particularly in terms of self harm among teenage girls who felt isolated and distressed. This was fed straight back to school and safeguarding procedures work really well in general.
There's a lot of uncertainty for children in this pandemic and we are expecting issues around mental health to get worse as time goes on.
That's why it's so important to keep our schools open because for many children it's the only structure they have.
