DESIGNER

Joseph Son

PROFILE/DESCRIPTION

Article text courtesy of nytimes.com "Meeting the Mental Health Challenge in School and at Home"

Last year, Leticia Guerrero-Castaneda’s 11-year-old son, Isaiah, was struggling. He was in the fifth grade when the pandemic shutdown occurred, and his reaction was to shut himself down; he became pathologically afraid of germs and contamination.

“He wouldn’t come out of his room and became afraid of touching anything,” Ms. Guerrero-Castaneda recalled.

That led to depression and anxiety, which affected not only Isaiah, but his family. By the time he returned to the classroom, Isaiah was in seventh grade and, like many students, was experiencing behavior problems.