|
Abstract
|
In April, 2012, India became the first south Asian country to enact legislation addressing the public health crisis of child sexual abuse. The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act 2012 provided a crucial impetus for national child safety agendas and for the role of child mental health professionals to involve more than only the treatment of mental health problems related to child sexual abuse, including supporting children through legal processes.1 Consequently, capacity-building programmes to inform child mental health professionals about ensuring victim-centred and child-friendly implementation of provisions of the law are imperative.
However, there is a paucity of skilled staff in child and adolescent mental health due to few specialised training programmes;2 many programmes do not incorporate childhood trauma or abuse in their curricula. Combined with India's nascent development in forensic psychiatry,3 this situation has created challenges for child mental health professionals trying to embrace their increased responsibilities of providing treatment interventions and supporting children through legal processes.
Support, Advocacy and Mental Health Interventions for Children in Vulnerable Circumstances and Distress (SAMVAD) is a national initiative and integrated resource for child protection, mental health, and psychosocial care established by the Indian Ministry of Women and Child Development. SAMVAD aims to improve child and adolescent mental health care in primary, secondary, and tertiary health care, child-welfare services, educational institutions, and protection and law-related spaces. Implementing transdisciplinary and integrated approaches to child mental health and protection, SAMVAD is located in the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (Bangalore, India). SAMVAD provides technical support, particularly training and capacity-building activities, to child-protection functionaries, mental health-care service providers, teachers, early childhood care workers, police, and judicial officers across the country. With trauma and abuse forming crucial areas of SAMVAD's work, it seeks to integrate these themes into the various spaces that children inhabit. Using experiences of research and interventions in child sexual abuse, and in recognition of the needs and complexities involved, SAMVAD developed a training curriculum for forensic mental health in child sexual abuse for child mental health professionals...
Language: en |