Today, October 10, 2023, is World Mental Health Day.... The great pandemic of our society, the great forgotten and sometimes stigmatized... From the Mental Health Confederation, we invite society in general, and especially the educational community, to reflect on how infant and youth mental health is being managed. A matter of utmost and vital importance since children, adolescents and young people have seen their emotional and mental health diminished after the Covid pandemic, a fact that has been increased by the issue of electronic devices, especially social networks and various mobile applications.
As a teacher in a public high school in Lanzarote, I want to make a call to society in general so that the necessary mechanisms are given and the necessary resources of vital importance in the field of mental health prevention are articulated. We cannot witness how the central Government of Spain convenes so few PIR places, within our public health system (these places enable clinical psychologists to prevent and detect, among other functions, mental health work); we cannot stand idly by while many heads continue to shout and clamor to vox populi ¡HELP and AID!.
As teachers, we have a precious task of educating in all senses of life, a quality and comprehensive education that provides the necessary tools to be able to prevent in the first instance, then treat in a second stage and finally to reintegrate into our society people who suffer and suffer any type of emotional and mental ailment.
Breaking the stigma of mental illness has always been the motto of the Cribo, which I have embraced to be able to work in the classroom until before the pandemic. Once we are visited by
Covid-19 we changed the approach and set to work to prevent and act on infant and youth health.
That is why I propose the following decalogue of good mental health:
1. ¡I want the classroom to know well how the body, the mind, the emotions work... and not so much a curriculum that disconnects us and sometimes even dehumanizes!
2. ¡I want our children/girls, adolescents and young people to detect the mechanisms to face various existential, physical and/or emotional crises!
3. ¡I want us to change the blue light of the screens and learn to look into the eyes, which is where the light of the soul and our emotions resides!
4. ¡I want us to learn to spend quality time with our young people!
5. ¡I want that if the public administration turns its back on us in terms of mental health or arrives late, we anticipate and look at the real need of the environment where we
we move!
6. ¡I want a quality public health system that meets the true demands of those who go to hospitals and reduces the waiting lists of specialists in psychology and psychiatry!
7. ¡I want the social stigma around mental health patients being dangerous to be eliminated once and for all!
8. ¡I want more public offer of PIR places and therefore, of clinical psychologists!
9. ¡I want the curricula to be updated to the real needs and demands of our children/girls, adolescents and young people!
10. ¡I want us to help each other in the prevention of infant-juvenile emotional health!
And you, who read us and who surely vibrate with this issue of vital importance, what do you think we need to improve mental health in our children, adolescents and young people? Let's build, hand in hand and together, the present.
Fran Santana, PP affiliate
