Image 1: Healthy child program from pregnancy to age 2 sourced from https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/healthy-beginnings-applying-all-our-health/healthy-beginnings-applying-all-our-health
Image 1 above demonstrates the significance of having children mental health programs that will facilitate better development of brain. It shows the stages through which a child undergoes from prenatal stage until the time when the baby is ready to learn. All these stages are vital for proper mental development and they inhibit occurrence of psychological issues since mental disorders between childhood and the adulthood keep rising. Early intervention reduce the chances of long term illnesses during growth. Additionally, it is evident that children who do not go through the above process are most likely to develop complications of the brain in their lifetime even though they do not show any signs during infancy. Certain issues occur at particular stages of child development. Intervention and screening for such problems can be carried out at the stage where the disorders are likely to occur. At the prenatal stage, the fetus is nourished with a balanced diet and examined by screening to identify any abnormalities before taking measures to curb the complications. When the baby is born action should be taken against mothers who deny to breastfeed their babies as breastfeeding increases immunity and will reduce the chances of developing mental health issues.
The next stage is to provide the child with all types of nutrients. Balanced nutrition is essential for mental health as it controls such sicknesses related to brain development such as hyperactivity disorder, depression, Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia. The 2001-2004 national health and nutrition examination Survey found out that 13% of children aged 8 to 15 had a diagnosable mental ("Child and Adolescent Mental Health Policies and Plans", 2005). Attention deficit hyperactivity issue in children was the most prevailing one with 8.6%, followed by mood disorders at 3.7% and major depression at 2.7% (Wadsworth, Marmot & Wilkinson, 2006). Any illness discovered at this time should be dealt with in the shortest time possible. When effective interventions are employed, they reduce the mental health disorders burden on families as well as individuals, and lower the costs associated with health systems and society (Trautmann, Rehm & Wittchen, 2016). The cost of mental health disorders goes beyond the medication and does not only have hidden costs but also negative impacts on economic growth.
Image 2: Graph of Mental Service Use for Children aged between 8-15 years; Source: CDC.
Usually, age is the main factor used to assess the readiness of a child to start schooling. Other factors that are considered to determine readiness for school include: social competence which is the social interaction with other children, language and the general knowledge. More time is spent by children in school than in any other institution. Therefore, a school plays an important role in determining the development of children, from peer relations and interactions to attainment of academic and cognitive growth and expectations of behavior. Mental health affects all these factors hence, mental health services implemented within school can establish integrative continuum which improves attainment of educational and psychological fitness. Promotion of mental health in children is facilitated by parents who are the primary educators.
Image 2 above indicates the percentage of various disorders in relation to mental health service utilization in school system. According to the descriptive statistics, males are 50% most likely to use mental health services than females (Menard, 2008). Therefore, females are prone to high chances of disorders. Children face numerous mental health disorders apart from the four major issues. All other ailments that seldom occur were studied under one classification of any disorder. This any disorder became more significant with the highest percent of children with complications while the anxiety disorder is the least that affect children's mental health care with a percentage of 32.2. The common disorder that affects children's mental health care is the ADHD with 47.7 percent followed by the conduct disorder with a percent of 46.4 and lastly the mood disorder with a percentage of 43.8. There is a slight margin among these three types of mental disorders. Therefore, they are significant in the determination of the child's mental health care.
The study discovered that children aged 12 to 15 are more likely to utilize the mental health services than those aged 8 to 11. No relations were discovered between races and anxiety, mood and conduct disorder. The Mexicans and Hispanics had 12 month lower rates of ADHD compared to non-Hispanics. The federal government should integrate communication between education systems and health care to necessitate early identification and implementation of well school intervention. The legal arm should ensure that proof by children against the perpetrator of violence against them is provided without a physical presence of the perpetrator. Another regulation involves assessing an existing better practice of school based programs to minimize disruptive behavior issues and increase school performance.
References
Child and Adolescent Mental Health Policies and Plans. (2005). [ebook] Singapore: World Health Organisation, pp.1-85. Available at: http://www.who.int/mental_health/policy/Childado_mh_module.pdf [Accessed 2 Mar. 2018].
Trautmann, S., Rehm, J., " Wittchen, H. (2016). The economic costs of mental disorders: Do our societies react appropriately to the burden of mental disorders? EMBO Reports, 17(9), 1245–1249. http://doi.org/10.15252/embr.201642951
Wadsworth, M., Butterworth, S., Marmot, M. G., " Wilkinson, R. G. (2006). Social Determinants of Health. Oxford University Press.
Menard, S. (Ed.). (2008). Handbook of Longitudinal Research: Design, Measurement, and Analysis. Elsevier. Amsterdam: Elsevier/Academic Press
