Mental Health Issues: Time to act
Javaid Jawad
We are living in a conflict zone, which has direct bearing on the mental health of the people. It is a documented fact that women and children are especially at the receiving end on the psychological front.
Moreover, COVID–19 has added to the stress level of the above-mentioned vulnerable groups, family heads who were rendered unemployed and could not fulfill the needs of their families too became the victims of mental health issues. It has shattered individuals, families and relationships. Besides, mental health is the most neglected aspect in our society, which has complicated the issue.
The department of School Education in 2020 launched a programme to reach-out to the students who were imprisoned in their homes due to COVID – 19 pandemic. During this programme, the counselor teachers received training from trained Psychologists and Medical Practitioners in both online as well as Offline mode, which helped the teacher counselors to understand the importance of Mental health. Through this initiative, our team of counselors reached out to over 12000 students in district Bandipore.
Both parents and students are living a stressful life in most of our families and even the teachers are no exception. When both parents and teachers are themselves ignorant and stressed, we cannot expect them to bring their children out of stressful life style. If the issue is not addressed well in time, it can lead to disastrous consequences.
What is the way forward?
Mass Awareness: Both the training and the interaction with the students made us realize that parents, teachers and the students need to be sensitized about the mental health issues on mass scale.
The need is to sensitize each and every teacher through cluster level trainings in the first phase (we have some 40 clusters in 05 Educational Zones of the district), which will be followed by the 2nd phase of parent sensitization.
When our teachers are aware of the importance of Mental Health then only we can expect them to work for the well being of their students. There are instances when in some cases teachers, with their attitude discourage the students. Even in some cases students undergo psychological trauma. Teachers need to be trained on how to deal with students in the class coming from different backgrounds especially in government educational institutions.
It has come to our notice that students going through some mental health issues are being treated harshly at home as well as at school. I recently came across a case of a class sixth student who began to behave in an abnormal way at home and school. At home parents used to reprimand him, shame him and beat him. At school teachers shamed him before the students for his ‘waywardness’. God forbid if tomorrow the student becomes an outlaw, who is to be blamed?
Once every teacher is counseled and trained the focus should be shifted to parents. Instead, of engaging teachers in non academic activities, their services should be utilized to counsel parents and students. A mechanism in consultation with Department of Psychiatry in SKIMS and Department of Medical Education needs to be framed to train the teachers.
Besides other factors taking care of the material aspect and ignoring the spiritual dimension is the main cause of steep rise in mental health issues in our society. An individual is a combination of body and soul. Taking care of body needs and leaving the soul unattended will lead to adverse consequences.
For spiritual well being of the students necessary measures need to taken. Noted religious scholars could be roped in to help the community to overcome mental health issues.
Religious scholars are supposed to help people come out of the morass of hate, greed, selfishness, conflicts, mad race for material gains and anxieties of life which otherwise are proving to be some of the causes of mental health issues. They need to be taken on board to take on the issue of mental health.
(The author is the District Nodal Officer Counseling District Bandipora. He has recently been awarded by ‘Best Teacher’ award)
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