COVID Killed Their Parents. One Silicon Valley Official Wants To Help Them

By Eli Wolfe, San Jose Spotlight

February 14, 2022

Roughly one out of every 450 children in the U.S. have lost a parent or caregiver to COVID-19. An elected official in Santa Clara County wants to make sure those children aren’t forgotten.

Supervisor Susan Ellenberg will ask the county at Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting to establish a program to identify and support youth whose parents or guardians have died from the virus. Ellenberg said she wasn’t sure how many children have been impacted in Santa Clara County, but she is alarmed by the national numbers.

“The statistics to me were really disturbing,” Ellenberg told San José Spotlight. “So I wanted to make sure that first we are providing particular supports to that group.”

As of Monday, 2,082 people have died of COVID-19 in the county since the pandemic began, according to government data. In California, an estimated 26,891 children have lost a parent to COVID-19.

Ellenberg is also asking the county to expand wellness centers on school campuses. The Santa Clara County Office of Education operates 12 centers across 10 school districts, and in 2020 received a state grant to add more centers.

“Having access to wellness centers on campus increases, by 21 times, the likelihood that students will receive access to mental health services,” Dr. Chaunise Powell, director of youth health and wellness at the Santa Clara County Office of Education, told San José Spotlight. “It also significantly reduces the stigma associated with seeking mental health services and increases attendance, the likelihood of graduation and decreases the likelihood of dropout.”

Desperate for services

Advocates who support Ellenberg’s proposal say it’s been difficult to keep up with the demand for mental health services right now, and those needs are more acute for families that have lost parents or caregivers.

“If you’ve got a youth struggling with depression or anxiety, and you layer that on top of losing their primary support, the person they love, that’s just devastating,” Don Taylor, Bay Area executive director of Uplift Family Services, told San José Spotlight. “It takes a long time to heal from that.”

Uplift Family Services is the largest behavioral health provider for minors in Santa Clara County. Taylor said his agency helps families who have lost providers connect with vital resources, such as financial assistance to cover the cost of funerals. He said accessing services can be difficult for families in the wake of a death.

“The expansion of wellness centers may be able to widen the access points for those families or kids who don’t have resources—or don’t know they’re out there,” Taylor said.

Kathleen King, chief executive officer of the Healthier Kids Foundation, told San José Spotlight her organization screens hundreds of fifth graders for various health care issues—including mental health—in high-need school districts such as Alum Rock Union School District and Franklin-McKinley School District.

She said recent data shows about 2-3% of children are dealing with severe mental health issues such as suicidal ideation. About 46% of children screened have borderline needs, which she said are still serious.

“It’s pretty drastic out there for kids,” King said, noting that on top of mental health needs, her organization has tracked an alarming increase in the number of children in need of dental work, such as filling cavities.

Ellenberg also wants to increase the county’s supply of early childhood education and childcare workers. In 2020, the county approved $2.5 million to fund childcare programs in the county using federal relief dollars.

Despite this aid, the childcare industry was devastated by the pandemic—according to county data from December of last year, 12.5% of providers in the county closed over the last 18 months. This reduced the total number of licensed early learning and childcare workers by 10% and left roughly 7,000 kids without childcare.

“We’re finding now that it’s a particularly hard challenge that falls on women mostly, for moms to get back to work if they don’t have adequate, affordable childcare options,” Ellenberg said.

The Board of Supervisors meets on Tuesday at 9:30 a.m. Learn how to watch and participate.

Contact Eli Wolfe at eli@sanjosespotlight.com or @EliWolfe4 on Twitter.

This story will be updated.

Editor’s Note: Kathleen King is a member of San José Spotlight’s board of directors.

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