Caritas’s Center for Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CCAMH) team of program director, doctors, child psychiatrist and key staff took part in a 3-day training on Neuro-developmental problems in children from 10th-12th November, 2015.

CCAMH program aims to find social justice, improve access to health and education, through early identification, counselling and offering multi-model therapy, for the children and

adolescents who are at risk of abandonment due to neuro-psychiatric problems such as cerebral palsy, mental retardation, autism, epilepsy and mental health problems.

Built on this experience, the program takes into account staff’s capacity building program as key when serving children and adolescents who need this special care and treatment. Over the last 10 years, CCAMH has worked closely with the professional teams from Norway to ensure that all concerned staff is well-trained.

Dr. Kao Sambath, CCAMH’s Chief of Service said the training is part of capacity building program initiated by CCAMH. “Neuro-developmental training is provided to key staff every year with the aim to build their capacity and to see them help to promote information and knowledge sharing among mental health professionals, including caregivers with experiences and those who are working in similar fields”, said Dr. Sambath, adding that he hoped participants will understand more about the problems and discover new learning and the updates.

The training program was led by Dr. Gunn, Dr. Marit and Dr. Krister, from Norway and included community visit, meetings and conference.

Dr. Hong Chea, one of the participants appreciated the training. This was the second time he had attended the course. “The training helps me to become more confident in the daily work. Not only in practical work, but participants are able to build their confidence in other areas such as the use of medicine, follow-up of patients and necessary intervention”, Dr. Chea shared.

The director of the program, Dr. J. Bhoomikumar, explained that while Cambodian children has a wide range of problems such as autism, Neuro-developmental, epilepsy, mental health problems, CCAMH sees a special need to have a specialized team and practitioners to work in all these areas. “We are a learning organization. 30-40 percent of the working hours of staff are spent on learning together and learning how to help children”, Dr. Bhoomikumar told.

Neuro-developmental disorders are commonly known as a group of disorders in which the development of the central nervous system is disturbed. This can include developmental brain dysfunction, which can manifest as neuropsychiatric problems or impaired motor function, learning, language or non-verbal communication.

In Cambodia, comprehensive services for the mentally handicapped persons, especially children and adolescent are not much available at present. Dr. Sambath told CCAMH is working with the government, partners, catholic NGOs, community, schools over a wide range of programs such as capacity building, research and outreach activities.

CCAMH is a collaborative project between Caritas and the Cambodian Ministry of Health. CCAMH is currently implementing three projects namely 1/center-based program at Chey Chumneas Referral Hospital, 2/ school-based inclusive education and mental health program and 3/community-based inclusive development program.