Children and young adults will be returning to school, when the pandemic situation in Malta is far worse than it was in March when schools closed. Precautionary guidelines and measures in place or not, the Education Minister has been characteristically economical with details and roped in educators and unions only when and if he deemed it fit.  Understandably, parents and educators are waiting with trepidation to see what fresh challenges they will need to tackle, most ostensibly physical health issues, if any.

Most parents and educators have battled anxiety and helplessness these past months, while their children or class were having lessons from home. Putting on a brave face, trying to disguise the layers of frustration and fatigue must have been quite a feat even for parents who are used to simultaneously juggle schooling, a full-time job and run a household (amongst other things) on their daily to-do list.

This is because, so far, most parents have yet to understand and properly gauge what the educational, social, emotional and psychological aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic on their children has been; their children, who were bereft overnight of face-to-face interaction with their peers and teachers. The lingering uncertainty is all the more understandable if during the past scholastic year, their children have not been able to follow, much less participate in on-line lessons regularly. The situation is exacerbated for children who would have required learning support educators, speech therapists, occupational therapists, counsellors, psychologists and other professionals whose services were physically unavailable up to a few weeks ago.

Of special concern are definitely the parents, who more than others, might need more than one helping hand simply because they are single parents, are parents of children or young adults with special needs, have lost their job and might need to change their home, are undergoing separation, are battling their own, possibly new mental health issues...the list is endless. Who has and will help these parents out?

It is common knowledge that the Labour Government has been less than sensitive to these parents and their children’s needs, particularly from a mental health aspect. How frequently available were and to this day are services to children requiring mental health services available? How accessible and ideal is it that these services are housed at St Luke’s Hospital rather than Mater Dei? Are community services located in central parts of Malta or just in certain districts?

Is there an actionable plan that is actually being implemented and monitored for improvement purposes? Have the service providers themselves, particularly given the current number of mental health professionals been able to cope with the rising demand in mental health interventions? Has the Labour government invested in training these professionals? Is there a reasonable budget being spent and is there a good return on investment?

My intention here is not to ask a multitude of questions, some of which we clearly know the answer to them is “no” or “not enough”. However, we cannot keep on skirting round the fact that two studies have given us insights into mental health issues that Maltese children and young adults  are facing or will face. The 9th Good Childhood Annual Report 2020, which examined international data from a 2018 survey by the Programme for International Assessment (PISA) in relation to well-being , ranked 69% of our Maltese 15-year-olds as the second worst among 23 European countries  in life satisfaction and as having the greatest fear of failure. In a similar vein, the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study carried out by the World Health Organisation (WHO) also showed that Maltese children were amongst the most dissatisfied with their lives.

Policies and implementation measures will never materialise and translate into concrete changes that benefit different cohorts and groups within our community, without proper consulatation and without the involvement and, yes, the criticism of improtant stakeholders. By now, all of us know that Gvern Li Jisma was basically a slogan that never made its way outside the marketing team’s door into real-life situations, that is, unless, you were a donor or a businessman, of course.

This government has to stop failing those presently requiring mental health care but also those that might require such care. The care has to be easily available and accessible, tailor-made to each individual, be they children, adolescents, adults, caregivers, educators or not. That is the only way that the economic results for which every government has striven, could be translated in good health and social outcomes for the population at large.

 

Ivan Bartolo is a Nationalist MP