How to support stressed out students as school returns [Video]

(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Local mental health professionals say going back to school can often be a stressful and anxiety-inducing experience for young people, and one expert has shared a few ways to offer valuable support.

Ben Frank is with the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). He told WBBM Newsradio that, since 2021, more young people have been experiencing what he described as mental health symptoms. In Chicago, he said it’s particularly an issue among seventh and eighth graders,

“There’s a lot of concern about, OK, what happens when I leave my elementary and middle school experience,” he said. “Do I get into the right high school or the right circumstance, or the right social group or the right sports team, or do I excel enough?”

Frank said feelings of “nervousness and overwhelming fear” can manifest in physical ways.

“That might be like tummy aches … for young people, that’s how they express …