Pat Roxborough, Staff Reporter
WESTERN BUREAU -
THE Government's Health and Education Ministries want to start a programme in schools that will arm students with knowledge to protect themselves from the dangers of drug abuse, depression, sexually transmitted diseases, teenage pregnancies and other mishaps.
The programme, a combination of life skills aimed at cultivating what is internationally known as emotional intelligence, is being taught in a number of primary schools from grades one to seven in South Africa and Botswana, Africa with great success, according to Dr. Earle Wright, the Health Ministry's director of mental health.
Emotional intelligence refers to an individual's ability to manage his emotions, control himself and by extension relate intelligently to the people around him.
"The studies that have been done show that this is the only way to go. These skills need to be taught at the earliest level, by the time the child gets to age 10 it is too late. I mean you may teach them and try to correct a situation that has already gone bad, but the critical time is at the beginning of their development," Dr. Wright said.
Dr. Wright, who is also the president of the Jamaica Psychiatric Association, told The Sunday Gleaner last week that the programme would focus on skills which would normally be instilled by the family. The adoption of the programme would see teachers showing students how to make appropriate decisions in much the same way a responsible parent would.
"Let's face it. The family is not what it used to be. Those values that we used to learn at home are not being taught and the result is the current levels of violence, teenage pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases and depression that our youth are experiencing," he said.
Doubts
The Ministry of Education has, over the years, attempted to address the problems that adolescents face through its guidance counsellors who are stationed in schools across the island. Their work involves pre- and post-crisis counselling.
However, the effectiveness of their work has been questioned against the background of the findings of a number of studies carried out earlier this year by a team of Jamaican doctors from the Health Ministry, with the assistance of the officials from the Education Ministry. Excerpts from one of these studies, conducted by Dr. Shelia Campbell-Forrestor, regional director of the Government's Western Regional Health Authority, exposed the need for the implementation of a behavioural and emotional screening instrument at the primary care and school level "...to pick up early warning signs of suicidal behaviour and implement early intervention measures", she explained in her report in September.
Dr. Delores Brissett, who heads the guidance counselling unit in the Education Ministry, could not, after months of effort, be reached for a comment on the feasibility of incorporating Dr. Campbell-Forrestor's and other recommendations in public schools.
Lifeline
However, Hyacinth Bennett, principal of the Hydel group of schools in St. Catherine, which has accepted many students who have been expelled from public schools because of behavioural problems, told The Sunday Gleaner that her institution was aware of the importance of cultivating emotional intelligence at all levels.
"Over the years I have worked at other schools I have always been looking for the missing link. In 1992 when Hydel was set up, our vision and mission recognised that the child's emotional and mental health is of the utmost importance. When you get a child to be emotionally secure, the sky's the limit," she said.
According to Euvina Haseley-Allen, the assistant chief education officer in the Education Ministry's Early Childhood Unit, the need for such a programme cannot be over-emphasised.
