Nghe An workshop on policies and practices of school mental health care
School mental health care is one of the urgent requirements in the current context. This will directly impact students' academic performance and their overall social, emotional and behavioral development.
On the morning of November 26, the Provincial People's Committee organized a workshop on School Mental Health Care in Nghe An: From Policy to Practice.
The workshop was chaired by comrades Bui Dinh Long - Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee, Nguyen Khac Lam - Deputy Director of the Department of Science and Technology.
Also attending were Associate Professor, Dr. Tran Thi Le Thu - Hanoi National University of Education, President of the Vietnam School Psychologists Network, representatives of a number of organizations, universities across the country and representatives of the Department of Education and Training, schools across the province.
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Many difficulties in school psychological counseling
In recent years, educational agencies and organizations have increasingly paid attention to activitiespsychological counselingin schools. In which, the Government issued Decree 80 on building a learning environment.educationsafe, healthy, friendly, preventing and combating school violence; The Ministry of Education and Training issued Circular 31/2017/TT-BGDDT guiding the implementation of psychological counseling for students in high schools and Circular No. 33/2018/TT-BGDDT on guidance on social work in schools.
Most recently, the Ministry of Education and Training also issued Decision No. 1442/QD-BGDDT dated June 1, 2022 on the Mental Health Education Program for Children and Students for the period 2022 - 2025, emphasizing the need to develop and pilot and replicate models to improve mental health in schools.
However, up to now, about 70% of schools nationwide still do not have standard school psychology counseling rooms, and lack of counseling experts, causing students to lack timely and appropriate support. This leads to consequences such as increased school violence; self-harm and harm to relatives; increased depression; lack of skills to protect themselves from evil... Meanwhile, there are many causes leading to mental health and psychosocial problems in adolescents such as the development of information technology, social networks - Family, school - Social awareness of mental health and psychosocial problems...
Reality also shows that despite the attention and focus on issuing policies and documents regulating social work and psychological counseling activities in recent times, the actual implementation of policies on psychological counseling and social work in schools still faces many limitations.
In addition, policy regulations have not met practical requirements; coordination between relevant parties is still lacking in closeness and synchronization; policies and job positions for the implementation team have not been specifically regulated; funding sources for implementation are limited...
Building safe and inclusive schools
Speaking at the workshop, Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Bui Dinh Long said that the workshop was held in the context that a number of incidents related to school psychology issues are still occurring nationwide and in Nghe An.
This is also an alarming issue when according to the latest statistics from the World Health Organization (WHO), globally, one in seven adolescents aged 10 to 19 has a mental disorder, accounting for 13% of the global disease burden in this age group.
In Vietnam, a 2021 study by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs estimated that about 15-30% of young Vietnamese people aged 9-19 suffer from mental health disorders such as anxiety, depression, loneliness and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Nghe An has a population of over 3 million people, including more than 800,000 children aged 0-16. Like many other localities, Nghe An also faces risks to social and mental health; risks in the digital age; school violence and abuse, anxiety, depression, feelings of hopelessness and the emergence of negative, illegal and self-destructive behaviors.
Psychological problems not only directly affect students' academic performance but also affect their overall social, emotional and behavioral development.
According to comrade Bui Dinh Long, these difficulties, if not identified and intervened promptly, can lead to serious consequences. Therefore, raising awareness of mental health in the community, especially in the school environment, becomes extremely urgent.
Based on the above facts, at this conference, the presentations will provide theoretical and practical basis for adolescent psychology in the new context. Factors affecting health and social psychology in adolescents. Delegates also discussed policies on social work and psychological counseling in schools.
Some papers on the use of social networks and the psychosocial characteristics of adolescents also assessed the current situation and topical issues of Nghe An students in the new educational context.
Through the workshop, we will propose solutions, propaganda programs, and psychological counseling programs to help adolescents improve their learning and emotional abilities in the family and society. From there, we will build safe and inclusive schools, and improve the psychological health of middle and high school students in the new context.
