Talk

Mental health and early prevention at the core of the Health Initiative

Thursday June 23, 12:00, Lobby NLG

Andreas Dracopoulos, SNF Co-President
HRH Princess Ghida Talal of Jordan, King Hussein Cancer Foundation (KHCF) and Center (KHCC), Jordan
Manel del Castillo, Chief Executive of Sant Joan de Déu Barcelona Children’s Hospital
Harold Koplewicz, Founding President and Medical Director, Child Mind Institute
Sander Markx, Director of Precision Psychiatry, Columbia University Medical Center
Barry Coller, David Rockefeller Professor & Vice President for Medical Affa irs, Rockefeller University

Improving access, quality, and equity in mental health services for children and adolescents is at the heart of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation's (SNF) Health Initiative in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, the US-based Child Mind Institute, and a network of Greek professionals specializing in mental health and psychosocial care for children.

"If there’s one positive thing to come out of the coronavirus pandemic, it’s the decreased stigma around mental illness. In the past, we would have been less comfortable discussing mental health," said SNF Co-President Andreas Dracopoulos in his opening remarks.

Harold Koplewicz, Founding President and Medical Director of the Child Mind Institute then took the floor, personally congratulating Andreas Dracopoulos and SNF for the initiative, as well as the entire network of partners, commenting that "for the last year and a half we have worked closely with some of the best Greek mental health professionals," and continued, "we are convinced that what we are doing here today is a model for every country in Europe and possibly the world."

For her part, the Deputy Minister of Health Zoe Rapti expressed her enthusiasm to attend the event, stressing the ongoing close cooperation between SNF and the Ministry of Health for the past four years. After referring in detail to the five-year program for child and adolescent mental health and the main pillars it is founded on, she noted that "the pandemic has shown us that our vision can only be achieved through joint ventures and collaborations in the private and public sectors, both at the national and international level. We need to develop policies that will promote health systems."
Giovanni Salum, Director at the SNF-CMI Child and Youth Mental Health Initiative, provided some alarming data on the mental health problems faced by children and adolescents around the world. For Greece in particular, he pointed out that mental illness has the greatest impact on students.

After outlining the objectives of the project, he yielded the floor to the Greek partners, noting that "we’ve learned a lot from interacting with all these professionals.”
He handed over the microphone to Aspasia Serdaris, Associate Professor of Child Psychiatry at the Democritus University of Thrace, who observed that nothing works without expertise, cooperation, exchange of views and assistance of the state. "The specific needs pertinent to child psychiatry in the country need to be mapped out and analyzed both by mental health professionals and stakeholders.”
Konstantinos Kotsis, Assistant Professor of Child Psychiatry at the University of Ioannina, then spoke about specific constraints on child and adolescent mental health services, including understaffing, which inevitably leads to long waiting lists for evaluation. "The pandemic changed the lives of children and adults but not everyone was affected in the same way or with the same severity. Τhe most vulnerable children experienced more issues," he said, stressing the need to focus on these populations.

Maria Basta, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Crete, then discussed the issue of doctor-to-population ratio, a major challenge faced by medical practitioners in Crete—especially psychiatrists—who are called to meet the needs of 600,000 people and practically the entire South Aegean. The partial lack of adequate child psychiatric services, accessibility issues faced by people living in the mountainous region of Crete and the concentration of services in major cities are some of the "problems plaguing this project, which is already underway" he said. "It is an ambitious project, but we are optimistic!" he concluded.
Anastasia Koumoula, Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, then noted that "there is a clear need for training of high-quality therapists."

The discussion concluded with George Moschos, lawyer and former Ombudsperson for Children’s Rights in Greece, stressing that "we need to systematically listen to children. They must have a say in the design and evaluation process of these programs.”