When it comes to mental health, a lot of times we put it on the back burner, thinking since it's not a physical problem we can handle it later.

However, thanks to the strain from the past couple of years thanks to COVID, even more mental disorders are starting to be found and those who had them before are starting to be affected now more than ever.

We have seen an increase in the number of mental health conditions, diagnosis of mental health conditions, even people who didn't have a mental condition before are really struggling, people who are already sensitive before, maybe had a mental condition, got worse," said National Alliance on Mental Illness volunteer Sarah Berke.

One of the groups of people affected the most by COVID-19 is the children in our community, with even more mental illnesses being diagnosed every year.

A lot of people don't realize one in five experience a mental condition in a given year and so that is a really kind of spring statistic,"Berke said. "It just shows that we really need to teach our youth how to take care of themselves not just mentally but physically as well.

To help spread awareness, the Adair County Library along with the National Alliance on Mental Illness(NAMI) Hosted an event on Saturday in Kirksville, teaching kids how to make stress balls.

NAMI hopes to teach parents skills on how to recognize and help children going through a rough time, as well as help them communicate to their kids that despite the struggles, everything is going to be ok.

So that they know that everybody feels sad and that's ok and everybody feels anxious or gets really stressed out and that's ok too," Berke said. "But, how do you deal when you're sad and how do you deal with when you're stressed out is really what we want to help parents and provide skills for.