GenPsych is a provider of premier mental health services that’s been helping clients regain their emotional and physical health in a safe, supportive environment for nearly two decades.

Although the pandemic is technically over, facts on the ground confirm that post-pandemic issues still linger for many adolescents.  According to the New Jersey Department of Education’s most recent School Performance Report (which shares data from the 2021-2022 school year), the incidence of bullying, violence, and harassment in K-12 schools is up, as is the level of chronic absenteeism, defined as missing more than 10% of school days.

It’s a reality that the team from GenPsych — a provider of premier mental health services that’s been helping clients regain their emotional and physical health in a safe, supportive environment for nearly two decades — has witnessed first-hand.  While many socio-economic factors can drive student absenteeism, the prevalence of “school avoidance” has recently been on the rise.

What Is School Avoidance?

“School avoidance — also known as school refusal and school phobia — is flagged when adolescents have missed a significant amount of school, at which point schools refer them to us,” shared Catherine Macken, LPC, senior executive director of GenPsych’s seven New Jersey locations (Livingston, Wayne, Rochelle Park, Brick, Bridgewater, Princeton, and Marlboro).   “Though children sometimes can’t explain why they don’t want to or aren’t going to school and may complain of stomach aches, nausea, dizziness, or other symptoms before school, doctors can often find nothing physically wrong with them, so these issues are mostly related to anxiety.”

School avoidance is estimated to affect as many as 5% of adolescents, especially those aged 13-17, but Macken said that its incidence has definitely ticked up since the pandemic.

“School-aged children missed almost three grades of in-person instruction during the pandemic and got used to being home, so the prospect of going back to the classroom and dealing with new academic and social pressures can cause a lot of fear and anxiety for some students,” she explained.  “Work environments have accommodated adults by allowing many to work from home, but children were expected to go right back to the classroom and pick up where they left off,” she said.  “The fact is, some younger children in first, second, and third grade don’t even know how to be in a classroom because the pandemic occurred at the beginning of their school career.”

School avoidance is estimated to affect as many as 5% of adolescents, especially those aged 13-17.

Knowing The Symptoms

According to Macken, school avoidance can be caused by such factors as problems with other students, difficulty being in a school setting for that long a period, anxiety over using a public bathroom, actual or perceived hostility towards the adolescent by teachers, a fear of failure, and other triggers.

“Symptoms of school avoidance include children complaining that they don’t feel well physically or else engaging in isolating behaviors, such as not talking to their friends or family as much,” Macken said.  “By the same token, children experiencing school avoidance may also have temper tantrums or act out more.  Ultimately, adolescents don’t always have the maturity or language skills to articulate how they feel, so parents need to be attuned.”

Macken said that it’s time for parents to seek care if the behavior becomes a pattern.   “If a child consistently refuses to go to school, a school nurse or counselor is calling several times a week but physical ailments can be ruled out, or the child is putting up a big fight about going to school, it’s time to intervene,” she said.

Using dialectical behavior therapy, GenPsych focuses on ‘distress tolerance’ and ‘emotion regulation’ to help individuals build the skills they need to transition back to a school setting.

A Caring Solution

“GenPsych is a partial-care and intensive outpatient service provider that represents a step down from a hospital and a step up from traditional in-person therapy,” Macken explained.  For the adolescent population, “we offer a six- to eight-week daytime program (either three or five days per week) in which children meet with an individual therapist on a weekly basis as well as a medication management provider (if they choose to pursue the option of medication on a temporary basis), and they also attend group-based therapy for part of each day.  We have our own school, SilverGate Prep, to help adolescents stay up to date on their schoolwork while they’re with us; some of our locations have anywhere from 20-40 students in the program and we typically have one instructor per every 10 students,” she said.

“We also offer a night program for children three times a week, which enables them to attend their school during the day and then join us in the evening for group therapy and medication management,” she said.

Christine Bowman, LCSW, program director for GenPsych’s Adolescent Program in Wayne, confirmed that a number of effective techniques are used to help students build the skills they need to transition back to the school setting.

Using dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), “we focus on teaching those with school anxiety two major categories of skills — ‘distress tolerance’ (e.g., building up the skills to be able to tolerate distress and intense emotions) and ‘emotion regulation’ (e.g., the ability to regulate your mood before it reaches crisis and intense levels),” Bowman shared. “We teach the skills in a group-based setting and assign homework so that participants can practice the skills at home.  We also conduct individual therapy based on a thorough assessment of each child’s situation and what’s causing their school avoidance.”

Bowman said that after participants are discharged from the partial program, they attend GenPsych’s after-school intensive outpatient program (IOP) to continue to work on these skills in a supportive setting where feedback is provided.

“Our program has been incredibly successful for those who are experiencing school anxiety,” Bowman said, “but, of course, any client’s success is dependent on their own level of participation and ability to take and practice the skills they learn outside of the program.”

“Many learn these skills along the way in life, while others haven’t learned them yet,” Bowman said.  “But just because there was a delay in understanding how to manage these emotions doesn’t mean they can’t be learned and mastered, and that’s where we come in.”

GenPsych’s Adolescent Program offers a number of effective techniques to help students build the skills they need to transition back to the school setting.

Getting Into The Classroom

While Macken encourages parents to truly listen to their kids and speak with their school counselors in situations of school avoidance, she hopes that families will avail themselves of GenPsych’s unique expertise in dealing with school-related stress and anxiety.

“We hope to get as many kids as we can back to school feeling comfortable in that environment and to provide them with the skills and resources they need to do that,” Macken confirmed.  “We offer the building blocks to help solve problems with the hope that clients will continue on their positive journey, and we’re always here to help them when they need us.”

Founded in 2005, GenPsych has seven locations in New Jersey, including Livingston, Wayne, Rochelle Park, Brick, Bridgewater, Princeton, and Marlboro.

If your child is struggling with school, or may be reluctant to go to return to the classroom, GenPsych has the tools to help. For more information or to schedule an appointment, call 855-436-7792 or visit https://genpsych.com/.