 Developing community mental health services for children in South AfricaA. L. Pillay and M. R. Lockhat Social Science & Medicine, 1997, vol. 45, issue 10, 1493-1501 Abstract: As a result of South Africa's Apartheid history, mental health care for black people, especially in rural areas, has been grossly inadequate and even non-existent in many areas. Children have been severely neglected in this regard. This paper describes an attempt by clinical psychologists to develop a community intervention programme for children with emotional problems. From their hospital base the authors set out, on a monthly basis, to outlying areas up to 250 km away to (1) train primary care nurses and other personnel in the basic techniques of identifying and dealing with uncomplicated psychological problems of childhood, and (2) render consultations to psychologically disturbed children. The paper argues the need to provide primary care workers with mental health skills and thus integrate childhood mental health care into the primary care structure. Such a move could make mental health care accessible to all inhabitants, thus deviating from the policies of the past. Keywords: children; community; mental; health; South; Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:45:y:1997:i:10:p:1493-1501 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier |
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