- Hello and welcome to Living in the Lehigh Valley, where our focus is your health and wellness.

I'm your host, Brittany Sweeney.

The pandemic has been tough on everyone, but especially our kids.

Recently, I hosted a community conversation about stress in our schools.

It led me to a place that was in the planning stages before the pandemic, but when students returned full time to in-person classes this year, no one could have predicted just how needed this special space would be.

The pandemic has disrupted three school years so far.

It's affected not only how students learn, but their mental health, as well.

- It just made me feel, like, scared and just confused, because it was something new for me, like, with being quarantined, and then, how everything was.

- Jailene Foster and Jayson Kroninger are both in 10th grade at Liberty High School, in Bethlehem.

Their entire high school careers have been maimed by pandemic protocols.

- Your first year of high school was so much.

It's already nervous.

You're nervous, your first year coming to a bigger school, and then, just added the COVID stuff on top.

It just added so much more stress on your back, and deadlines were more strict than normal.

Teachers were cracking down about the mask, yelling at you.

Just so much more stressful than it should have been.

- I just feel like we should have been taught more about it when it first came out.

That way, like, kids my age understood what was going on, and why this happened, instead of just being taken out of school and just never seeing your friends again.

- The students have found some solace in a mental health resource offered at the school, the Wellness Center.

- One person that you can turn to for help when you need it.

- It's helped me because it made me feel like I could talk to someone that I trust and that understands me, and supports me, which I really needed this year and last year.

But it just made me open up more, to know people care about me and my feelings.

- Getting kids used to hybrid learning and reintegrating into the classrooms and stuff was quite a struggle for everyone, and not just students, everyone.

- The center opened pre-pandemic but, as the last few years have added more stress and anxiety to many lives... - They could come anytime during the day.

- Clinical supervisor Robin Sorensen says the number of students coming in for help has skyrocketed.

- It's as if we knew that something was going to happen, and we would need these services.

It was really incredible.

I don't know where we would be... - As essential workers, she says they were able to continue working even through the shutdowns, offering therapeutic services to kids in need.

- Anxiety, a lot of anxiety, a lot of depression, just having trouble figuring out how to get through a day with planning, and that kind of thing.

- They kind of helped me with time management, like, stress relief.

They helped me plan out how to do stuff.

Instead of me reacting this way, I could react another way.

Just good times in here.

- We look at the whole picture and the student's whole story, and what's going to work for them.

- Music.

- Oh, yes!

I like to call a friend.

- Liberty has teamed up with the nearby Moravian College Occupational Therapy Program.

- Going for a walk.

- Interns work closely with the high schoolers.

- With the Occupational Therapy interns, they're focused more on participation in meaningful life activities.

So, they're taking whatever the students say are their main issues, and we try to help them with whatever they need to do, whatever barriers are in their way.

Inhale... Of participation in the things that they want and need to do.

- Four therapists are available for appointments throughout the week.

- Some of the things that we've worked on with them are simple, like calming strategies that they can implement throughout their school day.

Take a deep breath, in your nose... And make it functional to work for that specific student and their unique needs.

- Assistant Principal Nikolas Tsamoutalidis is a liaison between the Wellness Center and administrators.

- This is where I like to call the War Room.

This is where all the ideas started formulating.

- He says the team is working on ways to offer more services to the growing number of kids seeking mental health solutions.

- We specifically have set up a system and a structure knowing their needs are going to be great, and we already eclipsed the amount of kids, we call them "referrals", and we figure out what is it they need.

Some could be informal check-ins, some could be more formal, so it can be perhaps psychiatric help assistance.

We already, by the fall...

I'll give you, around the holidays at some point, eclipsed the amount of referrals we had last year, as far as kids that need help and need services.

- Tsamoutalidis says the focus on mental health will only intensify in years to come.

He hopes other schools will begin to offer similar programs.

- We're fortunate and we're very humble about that, that we're able to give our kids something that many schools are now scrambling to be able to build out.

- Offering free therapeutic services to students who may not otherwise have access to them is proving to be successful at Liberty.

- Got better, like, talking to people, got me being nicer to people, like opening up more.

My trust is better now.

- Liberty High Principal Harrison Bailey says the mental health of students is his primary concern.

He says he doesn't know how the school would get by without the work of counselors, therapists, and others who contribute to the Wellness Center.

And that will do it for this edition of Living in the Lehigh Valley.

I'm Brittany Sweeney, hoping you stay happy and healthy.