Thirteen teacher’s selected from schools within Region Four (4) are now being trained in a collaboration between the Public Health and Education Ministries to tackle mental health issues among young people in schools.
The academic professionals will be trained over a-2 day period at the Mental Health Unit, Quamina Street, Georgetown.
In Guyana 13-15% of mental health issues are found among adolescents in Guyana
As such, the Ministries’ aim in training the teachers is to help them to recognize children and adolescents with mental health issues such as self-harm, suicide and depression.
Director of the Mental Health Unit, Dr Util Richmond-Thomas said that the importance of Guyana’s children and adolescents cannot be overemphasized.
“The young, the aged and the vulnerable need the young adults to provide for them, protect them, defend them, to be productive, to pay taxes and to otherwise contribute to our society. We literally depend on their mental and physical strength and resilience, their knowledge, their judgement, loyalties and wisdom to help us to achieve our dreams and vision and that of our families’ communities” Dr Richmond-Thomas said.
Mental Health issues affect many developing countries due to a lack of adequate knowledge and mental health facilities. It affects around one in four people in any given year. They range from common problems, such as depression and anxiety, to rarer problems such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Stigma and discrimination also affects persons from seeking help.
As such Dr Richmond-Thomas noted that the training of the teachers is strategic and necessary at this time in Guyana.
“We feel confident to invite referrals from the Ministry of Education as enough capacity has been built on the ground to start addressing the mental health needs of our young people in primary health care” she informed.
Within the last two and a half years, 100 health care workers have been trained to diagnose and manage common mental health disorders. This, Dr Richmond-Thomas noted is a significant milestone for Guyana.
“I am proud to say that the mental health unit and Guyana has turned a corner over the past two and three quarter years, the mental health unit has been very busy training hundreds of health care workers to diagnose and manage common mental health disorders. Among them are more than 100 workers for primary health care. These disorders include those that commonly affect children and adolescents, so this is an incredible milestone for us” the Director said.
Representative of Education Ministry urged the trainees to play their roles following the completion of the training programme.
“This has come in an appropriate time in the Ministry of Education, the execution of this workshop is important. Mental Health is not about changing who you are, it’s about changing your relationship to who you are. As administrators of your various schools, the success of your school weight heavily on how you manage and you can only manage if you are fully equipped to do so. This workshop is equipping you to manage, so please use the skills obtained” the representative urged.
The programme will eventually be rolled out to target teachers from each administrative regions in Guyana.
