Children, teenagers can access mental health services at polyclinics soon

CHILDREN and teenagers as of May will be able to access the mental health services at the polyclinics island wide.

 

These services were previously only available to this segment of the population at the Psychiatric Hospital. 

 

Director of the Psychiatric Hospital, David Leacock stated this while indicating that it is part of the hospital’s strategy to reduce stigma youngsters may face while seeking assistance for their mental health challenges.

 

“Now ideally the issue of confidentiality should ensure that these persons can come in if they need to come to get the help and receive that help. If they do come to the hospital on their discharge they should not be positioned where persons that are receiving them view them differently because they were here. We want to ensure that we offer services that allow whatever age group in need to  to come in and receive those services. We are not at that level yet, we are still in Barbados. That is our reality. What we in turn have sought to do is to decentralise our child guidance services and we are hoping that by the beginning of May to have removed child guidance services from the hospital to the polyclinics so persons can access at the polyclinics.”

 

He continued, “So all these children or adolescents who need services from a mental health stand point wouldn’t have to come into hospital. Even though we are trying to remove the stigma we accept that there will always be a level of stigma… but we don’t want to have our kids or those persons accessing the services labelled and branded because if you have an issue of a behavioural nature occurring at this age, they should not encounter that let’s say 10 years down the line.”

 

Leacock’s comments came while delivering opening remarks at Wednesday’s discussion on the topic, ‘Mental Health & Stigma’. This event hosted by the Psychiatric Social Work Department and the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus’ Social Work Intern, Akeem Modeste-James was held at the Hospital.

 

More teens seeking help

During his address, Leacock also stated that “one of our growing populations, beyond the Alzheimer’s group, is now that of our child-adolescent population. They are actually more young persons coming into services in the last few years.” He added that this has meant that the hospital has “had to rethink our strategy and information, how do we care and manage those persons.”

 

He noted that going forward the hospital’s “long term aim is that within our services as well we will eventually have a child-adolescent unit that is specifically geared just for managing those populations.”