Debate: Coping and resilience in the time of COVID-19 and structural inequities

The hardships associated with COVID-19 have highlighted the importance of coping and resilience, and many mental health providers and organizations have responded by promoting the use of individual and familial coping tools. While individually oriented techniques benefit many, they can also disadvantage populations struggling the most. They exact a cost by placing a higher burden on those with fewer resources and thus risk widening structural inequities. Since community-level interventions can also enhance resiliency and are cheaper and more sustainable, more effort should be put into developing and deploying them. At a time in which hardship is widespread, parents are overwhelmed by multiple demands, structural inequities are rampant, and demand for services outpaces capacity, the mental health field must prioritize more equitable methods of assisting large numbers of children and families.