Children are facing lasting grief and mental-health effects from COVID-19 losses

• About 140,000 US children have lost a parent or primary caregiver during the pandemic.
• Children who have lost a caregiver are more likely to experience mental-health problems.

Almost two years into the pandemic, experts are beginning to grapple with the lasting effects that the virus may have on the mental health of children.

"I thought, 'It's my fault that my dad died.' 'Cause I was, like, if you would have talked to him or be there for him, he would probably be alive," 12-year-old Natasha Beltran told CBS News.

Beltran's father, Julian Peña, died of COVID-19 at 50 years old in a Bronx, New York, hospital in 2020. Since then, her family has been one of thousands that are navigating complex feelings of grief and trauma caused by the loss of a primary caregiver during the pandemic.

While much attention has been paid to the effects of social distancing and mask wearing in schools during the pandemic, fewer studies have tracked how many children have experienced coronavirus-related deaths and how they're managing their grief.

One recent study estimated that 140,000 children in the United States have lost a parent or primary caregiver to COVID-19 between April 1, 2020, and June 30, 2021 — with disproportionate losses suffered among Native American, Black, and Hispanic children. A global study estimated that the number is more than 1.5 million worldwide.

"Adverse childhood experiences are associated with increased risks of every major cause of death in adulthood," Susan Hillis, an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the lead author of the US study, told NPR.

The loss of a parent is associated with mental-health problems, as well as shorter schooling, lower self-esteem, sexual risk behaviors, and risks of suicide, violence, sexual abuse, and exploitation, Hillis' study continued.

For Beltran and her family, support has come in the form of a nonprofit organization called The Children's Village, which provides behavioral-health services for kids in New York. Similar nonprofits have cropped up in other states in response to such losses, with practitioners focusing on providing a safe space for children to let their guard down and not worry about being resilient in the face of loss.

"Resilience doesn't take away the trauma," Daphne Torres-Douglas, The Children's Village's vice president of behavioral-health services, told CBS News. "We still have to address the fact that they're hurting."