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The COVID-19 pandemic had a great impact on adolescent mental health, with a dramatic rise in psychiatric emergencies that has challenged healthcare systems worldwide. This paper aims at focusing on reporting the authors' experience and their data collected on adolescent emergencies in 2022 in Tuscan, within the context of the "Azienda USL Toscana Nord Ovest", a large department covering about a third of Tuscany's Regional Health Service, in central Italy. The collected findings will be shortly presented and commented on, while providing insights concerning the importance of adapting healthcare systems to adequately respond to this growing crisis and the need for broader strategies to support adolescent mental health in these challenging times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Covid-19 pandemic radically changed learning approaches by introducing long-distance teaching methods that are being applied both partially or completely. However, this emergency solution has not allowed everyone access to primary and secondary education and has resulted in various forms of discomfort due to students' socio-economic and cultural backgrounds. This contribution aims to demonstrate how long-distance teaching has produced different effects in the diverse pathways of study within the Italian school system which is based on early tracking and is characterized by the persistence of social reproduction mechanisms that have long been called attention to. In order to highlight how long-distance learning has been experienced differently by technical, vocational, and liceo students, an exploratory qualitative study focused on different upper secondary pathways within some schools in Tuscany was carried out. From the data collected, it was revealed that the greatest difficulties were encountered by students from low-SES families mostly concentrated in vocational schools. The pandemic emergency, therefore, seems to have further underscored the relational and educational needs of the most disadvantaged students. Overcoming an educational system based on early tracking could be a first necessary response to dealing with these problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]