Alliance to tackle children's mental health

A Yangtze River Delta Region Youth Mental Health Enhance Alliance was established at Xinhua Hospital on Sunday.

It will jointly build an intervention network for children with mental problems for early detection and early treatment.

There is a huge shortage of psychiatrists specializing in children’s mental problem in Shanghai, which has less than 20 such professionals.

To solve the shortage, Xinhua Hospital and Shanghai Mental Health Center teamed up to work out mental intervention plans for children in kindergartens, primary schools and middle schools in line with children’s age.

The alliance with 63 medical facilities as well as education authorities in the region will set up a network with experts majoring in medicine, psychology and education and train grassroot mental health workers to improve the mental health of children in the region.

According to Dr Zhang Jinsong from Xinhua Hospital, one of the leading experts in the alliance, the alliance will mainly focus on four problems — children’s emotion management and stress response ability to reduce risks of outburst of mental disease and damages from disorder; pre-plans for professionals to carry out under public crisis, improving children’s mental function and reducing damages from key diseases like ADSD, emotional disorder and autism; promoting proper techniques for children’ mental intervention.