Mental Health Support & Education for Chinese Kids

Without judgment, tell your mom three of her strengths and two of her weaknesses.  

Play a game with your dad.  During the game, neither of you can criticize the other.

Write your child a letter of affirmation.

As part of our mental health course, students and their parents participated in a seminar that included activities like the ones above.  The people in attendance also heard a presentation about how the mental and emotional needs of children change as they become teenagers.  The students and their parents learned to better communicate with and understand each other. 

Some Suggestions for Parents:

1) Talk less and criticize less. Listen and empathize more.

2) Respect your child's emotions and thoughts. 

3) Avoid comparing your child to others or labeling them negatively.

Some Suggestions for Teens:

1) Take the initiative to share your feelings and daily life with your parents.

2) Be disciplined in your study and have a positive attitude.

3) If you're upset, regulate your emotions before communicating. 

Many parents had received little up-to-date science-backed training on how to connect with and parent a teen, and they were so thankful to be able to join this event.  Thank you so much for your partnership in making mental health training available to families in rural China!  Your giving is helping families to connect, heal, and thrive!  God bless you!

Links:

• cwef.org.hk/blog

Twenty social workers and six mental health education teachers participating in CWEF's Mental Health Support & Education program in Luquan County, Yunnan, recently attended a mental health exchange.  The exchange took place at a very large and influential mental health center in the region that services around 30,000 people each year!

In order to improve their professional competence and practical skills related to mental health education,  CWEF social workers and teachers learned recent best practices in mental health during this event.  They also collaborated with peers to brainstorm solutions to practical challenges within their usual work environments and participated in team-building excercises intended to encourage collaboration among professionals in their daily work. 

In this way, staff for the CWEF mental health education program addressed challenges facing Luquan county specifically, such as: insufficient teacher expertise and the lack of a curriculum system.  Staff received practical suggestions like creating differentiated curricula, focusing on the essential needs of their clients, and sharing community resources.  Attendees reached concensus through discussion that it is better to start mental health initiatives, even if they are imperfect, and work to optimize and perfect them later on. 

As far as mental health practice, workshops at the event explored the connection between emotions, cognition and behavior.  The connection was explained this way:  

Emotions are the core foundation, influenced by multiple factors such as the upbringing environment, personality, and values; cognition is a thought pattern formed on the basis of emotions, determining how one views and judges things; behavior is the outward manifestation, driven jointly by emotions and cognition. The three are intertwined and inseparable.

In our work, we must set aside impatience, slow down to listen to the genuine feelings of service recipients, and accurately identify their underlying needs, rather than rushing to provide solutions.

Practitioners should lead by example, treating others with a positive, inclusive, and respectful attitude, and using positive words and actions to subtly guide clients toward natural changes in their emotions, cognition, and behavior.

In seminars, a lot of emphasis was placed on creating an emotionally connected, safe, and welcoming space for clients. A space where the emotional needs of clients can be met without too heavy of an emphasis on fixing or changing the client. 

The staff learned a lot through this mental health exchange!  We look forward to seeing the staff, with renewed energy and vision, make use of their new skills as they continue to teach mental health education to students in China!  Thank you so much for your generous support of this program.  Mental health affects every day of our lives and is often an area that gets overlooked.  So thank you for helping to ensure this uncommon program is available to students in Yunnan.  We hope that everything they learn through our programs will continue to bless them in many different ways over their lifetimes!

Links:

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