The Mazón Government includes a key test in the mental health reports of schoolchildren

The Generalitat Valenciana chaired by the popular Carlos Mazón will include in the health reports that schoolchildren carry out at each change in the educational cycle a screening or brief report on the detection of mental health problems. In addition, new teams of psychologists will be created in Valencian schools, dependent on each health department, but who will carry out guiding work in schools, in turn, towards teachers.

This has been stated by the new head of the Autonomous Office of Mental Health and Addictions of the Valencian Community, Bartolomé Pérez, who will also coordinate the Interdepartmental Mental Health Coordination Commission of the Generalitat Valenciana.

Problems related to mental health issues constituted a real battlehorse for the socialist Ximo Puig and his government. In December 2022, Puig presented a four-year mental health program, when there were only a little more than four months left until the elections. A plan that the PP then crossed out as a copy and paste of another previous one, dated August 2021.

This September, the new Valencian Minister of Education, the popular José Antonio Rovira, already announced that, precisely, mental health would be the great challenge in the classrooms for the new Executive of Carlos Mazón. And this Executive has launched transversal work whose execution is the shared responsibility of three ministries: Social Welfare, Education and Health, which in turn form an interdepartmental commission.

This Tuesday, coinciding with World Mental Health Day, this interdepartmental commission has started its work in a meeting in which the second vice president of the Valencian Government and Minister of Social Services, Equality and Housing Susana Camarero, the Minister of Education José Antonio Rovira and the Minister of Health Marciano Gómez.

And it’s not just a gesture. Mental health problems are of such concern to the new Valencian government that this matter is part of the 50-point agreement reached by the Popular Party and Vox to govern the Valencian Community. And not for a minor issue, but to guarantee that mental health will be one of the pillars of the public health system.

Specifically, in section 37 of the agreement it says, literally, that: «Mental health will be one of the pillars of the public health system with special attention to the scourge of suicide and unwanted loneliness. “We will strengthen prevention measures to raise awareness about this issue.”

In the case of the Valencian Community, as explained by Susana Camarero, it is the second autonomous community with “the greatest problems of depressive disorders” and, in terms of addiction disorders suffered by young people, “not only due to substance consumption but also due to drug abuse.” Internet or social networks, is placed in first place.

Thus, the lines of work of this Interdepartmental Commission will focus on prevention, care or assistance and social awareness actions on the problem of mental health.

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