Thiraporn Preediwong Office of Education, Khon Kaen City Municipality, Khon Kaen Province
At 3:00 p.m. on March 29, at the 3rd floor meeting room of the Northeast Child and Adolescent Mental Health Institute, Khon Kaen Province, Mr. Thirasak Thikayuphan, Mayor of Khon Kaen City Municipality, along with Dr. Chanchai Chanvorachai, Director of Khon Kaen Hospital, and Ms. Dusadee Chongsirikulwit, Director of the Northeast Child and Adolescent Mental Health Institute, signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in coordinating the collaboration of the organization network to develop a care system for children with learning problems by teachers, doctors, and parents. All 3 agencies have organized activities to solve the problems of children and youth in the pilot areas of schools under the Khon Kaen City Municipality, according to the cooperation framework on creating a network to help children with learning problems for all 11 schools under the municipality, which have more than 6,000 primary school students
Mr. Thirasak said that the implementation of the said cooperation framework will focus on developing a service system for children and adolescents with learning problems, in order to be able to effectively manage services for children and adolescents with learning problems, including other mental health problems, covering both promotion, prevention, and treatment and rehabilitation, with the aim of allowing children and adolescents to have greater access to services and to serve as a model for further expansion in other areas. From the survey of data from 11 schools under the municipality, which focused specifically on primary school students with more than 6,000 students, teachers and parents applied knowledge and techniques for screening children at risk and at risk of learning problems, resulting in a total of 440 children entering the treatment process, out of which 100 children entered the medical treatment process.
“Teachers are the second home or the second guardian who can reach children the most. They will know the behavior and habits of children in their classrooms the best and even better than their parents. Therefore, when teachers, who are like life givers, guides and opportunity givers, are the first line of defense to receive training in the correct knowledge and techniques from specialized doctors to assess and screen children who are at risk of learning problems, most of whom are in the group with attention deficit disorder, those who do not attend school, and those who have family problems and are bored with studying, all of them will be assessed by teachers and forwarded to parents to create mutual understanding and analyze the causes or reasons for various problems. Because we often only see adults as thinking that our children and grandchildren do not understand or do not follow orders, but today, the municipality must also understand what is happening or the needs of children. This is the starting point of the joint project of all 3 parties, starting in the municipality area by accumulating merit by building people so that people can build the nation in the future,” said Mr. Thirasak.
Ms. Dusadee said that from the survey results of Thai children in 2011, which were used as guidelines for problem-solving and cooperation among all parties after the survey results clearly confirmed that Isan children have lower IQ levels than other regions of Thailand, while Isan children still have the highest number of ADHD children in Thailand. In the past, there was very little assistance or access to medical services through screening or acceptance of the truth by parents. On average, out of 100 patients, only 5 received proper treatment. However, access to medical services has changed. Parents are beginning to accept that their children and grandchildren are suffering from specific illnesses, so they are increasingly seeking medical consultations and seeing specialists, especially child psychiatrists and adolescent doctors, increasing by 17 percent. Therefore, cooperation with local agencies is needed to screen patients with proper techniques and academic methods in order to promptly enter the referral process for treatment before any negative effects occur... Read the original news at: https://www.matichon.co.th/region/news_87801