POINT, Hanover — More than 500 professionals in the education system are to be trained, over the next three months, as part of a programme that will give 21,000 students in 177 school across the country a better understanding of mental health.

Expected to be rolled out next January, the Government’s School Mental Health Literacy Programme has a $10-million price tag.

The programme, which is for students between 13 and 16 years old, is a partnership between the health and education ministries.

“It is a difficult time to be a young person today; very difficult, and we must accept that no matter how advanced we think we have become as a people, as a country and indeed as a world, young people living in today’s Jamaica and today’s world have far more challenges than those growing up 20 years ago,” Minister of Health and Wellness Dr Christopher Tufton said at the second of three days of refresher training for the programme on Thursday at Grand Palladium Resort and Spa in Hanover.

He cited the downsides of otherwise positive technological advances, fallout from COVID-19, domestic violence inside the home or the wider community as factors that may lead to mental health challenges.

“One of the first things we have to do is accept that we have a problem. We must not shy away from it. We must not give the impression that it doesn’t exist. And indeed, worse, we must not misdiagnose it because if we misdiagnose it we’re going to prescribe a solution and an approach that is going to make the problem worse,” stated Tufton.

“One of the things that we have to talk about is what it means to be a deviant as a young person — to put it parochially, a bad pickney, someone who gives trouble — and how you interpret that behaviour. Because if you misdiagnose it and think that a natural response is punishment, you may actually be reinforcing and further impacting the temptation to even be worse of a deviant,” the minister added.

The School Mental Health Literacy Programme, he said, has come at a critical time.

“Now, more than ever, we need this kind of intervention, which is why I’m so happy that we’re doing it; and now, more than ever, we cannot afford for this intervention to fail. We can’t start it and stop it… We owe it to ourselves. We owe it to our young people. We owe it to society,” said Tufton.

Director of child and adolescent mental health in the Ministry of Health and Wellness Dr Judith Leiba said the three-day refresher course was for trainers who had their first virtual training in school mental health literacy in June 2020.

“Today we have four… master trainers from the Ministry of Education who are doing the refresher course and we have eight trainers from the Ministry of Health and Wellness,” she told the Jamaica Observer.

“These master trainers, in turn, at the regional level, will plan their own training at each high school in their region. The health and family life educator, the school nurse and the guidance counsellor… will then teach each other and then gather the three teachers from each of the high schools in their region and carry out the training, assisted by a mental health person as a kind of resource person,” she explained.

She said that in covering the main concepts of mental health, exploring the importance of being mentally healthy and outlining how to do so, teachers will go at a pace that ensures students are grasping the content.

“We also want to decrease stigma because we realise that because of stigma, a lot of our young people do not seek help. If all people do not seek the help they need, then something drastic happens and you know we’re all very sad about that,” said Dr Leiba.

The goal, she said, is to have the programme embedded into the curriculum.