The United Nations has said that approximately one in five young people will suffer from mental illness.
When World Youth Day was celebrated on August 12, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon appealed for services and support for young people with mental health conditions as well as those at risk. He also said there needed to be more discussion on mental health when it comes to addressing overall health.
Figures from the United Nation's Children's Fund (Unicef) said 1.2 billion of the world's young people between 15 to 24, experience some sort of mental health condition. It has said most do not receive the adequate treatment required because of fear of discrimination and the negative stigma associated with people experiencing mental disturbance of the mind.
The theme of this year's World Youth Day is Youth and Mental Health: Mental Health Matters.
Locally, one child rights advocate is making a similar call for the nation's youth and she believes there needs to be better training for professional groups working with and for children.
Activist Hazel Thompson-Ahye, also a member of the Child Protection Task Force, told the T&T Guardian via e-mail that not much progress has been made in implementing the Convention on the Rights of the Child since T&T submitted its first report to the UN Child Rights Committee 17 years ago.
She said then, the UN had noted with concern, that insufficient attention had been paid to the training of all professional groups working with and for children.
There is also concern that T&T's administration of juvenile justice is not compatible with international conventions like the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Beijing Rules (which deal with the administration of juvenile justice), the Riyadh Guidelines (which deal with prevention of juvenile delinquency) and the Rules for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of their Liberty.
"This recommendation of the UN Child Rights Committee was repeated in 2006, yet we still have juvenile justice personnel who are not even aware of these international instruments, yet they are expected to perform their duties in accordance with them," Thompson-Ahye said.
She added, some government ministries have even said there is no money for training, not realising they cannot afford to leave their personnel trained, as without training they run the risk of doing irreparable damage to children.
Epiphany Consultancy Services Ltd, an organisation to which Thompson-Ahye belongs is currently the only institution in T&T that offers the requisite training in child protection. The training takes the form of workshops facilitated by Dr Samuel Shafe, an expert in child and adolescent mental health and lecturer in child psychiatry at UWI.
A series of workshops for child protection professionals from T&T and the region began at the Cascadia Hotel, St Ann's on August 21 and will continue until August 29. The workshops will cover training in implementing international standards in youth justice, introduction to restorative practices; using circles effectively and training in facilitating restorative conferences.
Thompson-Ahye who studied youth justice as part of her masters in law degree has been training people who are involved in youth justice, around the Caribbean for the past 15 years. She pointed out the first workshop in T&T held earlier this year in March, was attended by heads of the Family Court of Belize and Cayman Islands, but no one from the Family Court in T&T was present.
She also said an important part of the workshops, will be the focus on child and adolescent mental development.
"This is important and there is a great need to train juvenile justice personnel in child and adolescent mental health in T&T because numerous studies show that mental health issues impact child development and children's involvement in juvenile delinquency. Juvenile justice personnel must be taught that we need to keep our children safe from psychological trauma. Part of that is caring for youth in a trauma-informed way and not threatening to re-enact their trauma by moving them if they don't behave," said Thompson-Ayhe.
"We need to emphasise the need to assess children for the risk factors that are the variables associated with the increased likelihood that they will continue with delinquent behaviour," she added.
According to Thompson-Ahye, the Ministry of Gender, Youth and Child Development, has pledged to act quickly on the development of child assessment centres so that more can be done to start saving the nation's children.
"The Child Protection Task Force in conjunction with the Children's Authority, have been lobbying for this for some time now. Hopefully we may not have to wait that long again before this materialises as the Government is has pledged to bring assessment centres on stream. This will certainly be a light at the end of the tunnel. It may be the most important initiative of the Kamla Persad-Bissessar government when its history is written, as it will influence the way we treat with children in the future and will be laying the groundwork for a healthier, happier and ultimately, safer society."
�2 For more information on the workshops call 223-8159 or send emails to: epiphanyconsultancytnt@gmail.com