For most people, those childhood years are their most treasured memories, but that is not universally true. As children, some endure hardship and trauma that affect their health and well-being as adults. That was the focus of today's Mental Health Annual General Meeting. It is being held at the Princess Hotel and several Mental Health professionals are being trained to look for those warning signs that tell if a child is in distress or being abused. Today American Child and Adoloscent Psychiatrist Dr. Linda Chokroverty explained that there is a multi-generational cycle of trauma that is directly linked to mental health issues in kids.
Dr. Linda Chokroverty, Child/Adolescent Psychiatrist, NY
"The main focus is to educate mental health workers and other professionals who work with families and children and to make them aware of things that may not be obvious. One of the most important things in terms of child development is prevention. If caring adults and caregivers can really provide children with the right guidance, the nutrients and the stability, even the experiences of a variety of a traumatic events that could happen in the lifespan can be made better or mitigated. The other part of the conference is really going to talk about helping people who are not in the fields become more aware of how to recognize and understand trauma. I've worked in the Bronx for many years and I see a lot of parallels because the things that I've dealt with are very similar to my understanding of Belize, even though this is my first visit. That is a lot of psychosocial problems, poverty, stress, domestic violence and community violence. These are all things that have a high impact on a person's mental health in general. Children are often sort of forgotten in terms of what they are taking in from all this and so it's important to be aware that there's a lot of different kinds of exposures. Also to be aware that there's a multigenerational aspect to the exposures because most of the children have parents and grandparents who've been experiencing these kinds of problems. They may not speak of it, but they may have unresolved issues around them, which we see in the adult population which are ongoing mental health issues, substance abuse, inability to function at the highest level, and that of course affects their parenting."
Eleanor Bennett, Coordinator, Mental Health Program
"Our brain changes when we are exposed to traumatic experiences. I want people to realize that this happens in childhood, when a child's brain is still developing. Often times, the change that happens in the brain is permanent. One thing that we always come across is that we always hear people say 'you're a child, what do you have to worry about? that shouldn't concern you that's big people stuff' not realizing that when the adult is busy taking care of the physicality of what happened, the child is taking all this in emotionally."
The workshop sessions began this afternoon at 1:00 and ends on Saturday at 2:00.
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