Rep. Angelica Natasha Co, BHW Partylist and chair of committee on welfare of children, said investments are badly needed in school clinics and the mental health of children.
In a statement issued during the National Children’s Month, Co said,
“children are suffering from the pandemic, economic hardships, technology stress, peer pressure compounded by social media pressure, overexposure to mobile games, online games, and computer games, and parental absenteeism, among others.”
“The private sector should be asked to subsidize or sponsor school clinics in schools. They should hire full-time licensed guidance counselors, nurses, psychologists, psychiatrists, nutritionists, social workers, and doctors for each public-school clinic they subsidize. The DepEd cannot do this, no matter how hard it tries because of the realities on the ground and the necessity of focusing on teaching and learning,” Co explained.
Co, a BS Psychology graduate of Ateneo, said DepEd data showed that there are 60,429 basic education schools.
She said “the growing mental health crisis our children face cuts across all economic classes. Whether, poor, low-income, middle-income, upper middle income, or rich, the indicators of mental health problems are present.”
But “the country does not have enough mental health practitioners to deal with about 30 million Filipino youths. There are not enough psychiatrists, psychologists, guidance counselors, occupational therapists, social workers, psychometricians, and nutritionists. On top of that, mental health services are inaccessible to most because of the cost of consultations, therapy sessions, group therapy, psychological testing, and medicines,” Co said.
“The burden of looking after the well-being of children is inordinately placed on the shoulders of teachers, who are already burdened by teaching duties and do not have the professional training to look for and address specific mental health and physical health issues,” she added.
Co said, “massive investments in financial resources and effort from the private sector are needed to make mental health services affordable and accessible at the community level. These are resources the national and local governments are unable to provide.”
“Frankly, mental health is considered a luxury, nice-to-have, or aspirational, but not regarded as essential, despite the Mental Health Act (RA 11036) which took effect in 2018. Given the immense public health crises the country faces, mental health is unfortunately not a top priority. RA 11036 is a good document, but not backed up by resources and effort. The government simply does not have the budget and people for it. The solution is to involve the private sector, mobilize corporations and NGOs to address mental health problems, especially depression, suicides, and illness,” the Barangay Health and Wellness lawmaker stressed.