09 Oct 2022

In the first decade of this new millennium, health professionals are faced with a rapidly increasing need for child mental health services and changing models of service provision. 

Director and Founder of Botswana Network for Mental Health Ms Charity Kennedy said in an interview on Thursday ahead of the World Mental Health Day, in Gaborone. 

Ms Kennedy stated that mental health, which includes emotional and behavioural areas of health, was a critical component of child wellbeing and impacts on children's physical health, relationships, and learning, and therefore called upon the government to invest in child psychology. 

She said appropriate treatment and intervention for children with emotional or behavioural difficulties has been shown to lessen the impact of mental health problems on school achievement, and relationships with family members and peers. 

She said absence of intervention could  lead to school failure, and other social problems in adulthood with significant risk for mental health problems including risk for substance abuse and suicide. 

She therefore pointed out that there was universal consensus that health professionals were currently faced with a rapidly increasing need for child mental health services, and as a consequence there has been a rethink about models of service provision for child age group. 

She said for efficient and cost-effective way of addressing the child mental health needs of a country would be to implement mental health screening programmes in schools and to integrating them with primary healthcare facilities. 

 

“Evidently, parents and teachers spend most of the time with children and empowering them to observe and refer children for help is critical and this also needs child psychologists to be available to remedy right comprehensive early intervention programs.” 

 

 

In this regard, she also said it was important to provide training for primary healthcare staff, community leaders, child protection committees and other professionals who work with children, in an attempt to increase their ability and confidence in the detection of mental health problems. 

She further said it was also important that the detection of mental health needs in children was matched up with appropriate referral systems, pathways of care, and mental health service provision. 

Ms Kennedy said some children go through a lot even starting from birth, “they could be abused by their mothers, because the mother is experiencing some stress or even postpartum depression, extending to scenarios where fathers deny the pregnancy, they could be bullied at preschools, saying the challenges affect children differently and their manifestation start in different ages such as during adolescent, youth or even grown up”. 

She pointed that a lot of adult psychiatric disorders have their origin in childhood and early adolescence, saying prevention should focus on early period of life, with surveillance and monitoring of ‘at-risk’ children, coupled with appropriate early-intervention strategies. 

She said according to World Health Organization (WHO) 2022, reports that half of all mental health disorders in adults start by age 14 but were not detected early enough. 

She highlighted that early intervention targets children in the early stages of disorders, adding that it however, becomes more complicated when it is left to grow, stressing that mental health services should be integrated in primary care. 

She therefore said if the school curricular could infuse child psychologists, the social ill the country was currently experiencing could lessen into the future. 

She nevertheless said even other aspects of life need counselors to talk to the happenings elsewhere, adding that the unemployed youth were going through a lot, the global warming that affects farming where famers end up losing their investment, linkages of road accidents and mental health are areas that need exploration, unfunctionable relations, unstable family environment, economic security, not positive educational environment, chronic illness, maternal depression, poverty, child maltreatment, domestic violence, parental substance abuse and other traumatic family disruptions such as divorce, saying if the right expertise was availed, then they could help prevent the tragedy that has been facing Botswana lately.

“It is now known that early intervention and prevention to mitigate risks and enhance protective factors can positively impact health outcomes” she said. 

Ms Kennedy also advised Batswana to normalize preliminary screening saying as much as people could go for prescreening on physical ailments, then it was also appropriate that they go for mental health screening.

 She stated that this year’s theme “make mental health and wellbeing for all a global priority” saying that calls for all to have access to comprehensive health services, mental health inclusive as all nations were advocating for a universal health coverage for all. 

She said the theme calls to give unique opportunity to make provision for services where it has not been available before, or to strengthen existing services. BOPA