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Gender bias – More Boys Sent To Children’s Homes, While More Girls Placed With Foster Families
Rodje Malcolm, executive director of Jamaicans for Justice, has raised serious concerns about the gender bias within state-care facilities, pointing out that more effort is placed on ensuring that girls are placed in foster care families while boys are more likely to be sent to institutions. Speaking on Thursday at a forum on Safety and […]
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JA Lagging In Basic Mental-Health Services
Statistics showing the ratio of psychiatrist to patient as 1:1,582 has signalled to Dr Diana Thorburn, director of research at the Caribbean Policy Research Institute, that Jamaica has been lagging behind in basic mental-health services. “The international standard is 1:150. We are far outside of the international standard with respect to the mental-health services of […]
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Mental health crisis among Jamaican children
Jamaica is currently experiencing a mental health crisis among adolescents aged 14 to 17 and the problem is further compounded by a shortage of mental health specialists in the public sector to deal with the affected children. Chief executive officer of the Child Protection and Family Services Agency Rosalee Gage-Grey made the revelation yesterday at […]
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Mental Issues Plague Many In Trinidad
It is estimated that some five per cent of this country’s school population—which comprises some 250,000 students—face serious mental challenges, some of which may include suicidal tendencies. But even more disturbing than this is the fact that there are not enough facilities to house children with mental issues, with the resultant effect being some of […]
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Jamaica’s Mental Health Emergency
Almost 108,000 Jamaicans (approximately four per cent of the total population) were treated for mental illness in public-health facilities across the island last year. Of that number, almost 2,000 were admitted to hospitals for extensive treatment. This is a sharp increase over 2013 and 2014 when an average of 90,000 persons were treated each year. […]
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Jamaican Teens engaging in Self-mutilation
A 17-year-old high school student who posted photographs of reportedly self-inflected cuts on social media late last week has elicited urgent calls from mental health professionals for more to be done in schools, and in society in general, to address what they describe as an emerging trend of self-mutilation among Jamaican teenagers. Cutting is a […]
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1 In 4 Jamaican Women physically Abused
One in four women in Jamaica has been physically abused by a male partner, and one in five has reported being sexually abused before reaching 18 years old. These are just some of the findings of the Women’s Health Survey 2016, which was launched yesterday at the Terra Nova All-Suite Hotel in St Andrew. The […]