4,915 CHILDREN BENEFITED FROM MENTAL HEALTH CLINICS LAST YEAR

KINGSTON , June 20 (JIS):

Some 4,915 clinic visits were made to the child and adolescent mental health facilities during 2006.

The 11 clinics across the island provide mental health care for children with behavioural and emotional problems.

Minister of Health, Horace Daley, in his contribution to the 2007/08 Sectoral Debate in the House of Representatives yesterday (June 19), said that anti-social and risk-taking behaviours, school drop-out and poor school attendance and performance, are frequent consequences of children left untreated.

“The majority of referrals to the clinics are sent from schools. In order to promote the services offered and make teachers more aware of the symptoms to look for, a series of seminars were held in all six regions in the Ministry of Education,” informed Mr. Dalley.

In the meantime, he said that with poor parenting skills blamed for the negative behaviours being displayed by children and adolescents, the Ministry will be publishing a training manual on ‘Raising Emotionally Smart Children’.

“The manual will focus on the four skills of emotional intelligence, which are: recognising and identifying feelings; understanding feelings; managing emotional feelings such as anger; and understanding the feelings of others and developing a sense of empathy and conscience,” Mr. Dalley informed.

“I am appealing to parents and to the community; please nurture and care more for our children,” he stated.