School-based Mental Health Literacy for Children and Adolescents in the Philippines: Training and Consultative Workshop

Reporting day: 2025/03/30
Reporter: Fumiko Shibuya (Graduate School of Health Sciences, University of the Ryukyus)

The school-based Mental Health Literacy workshop for Children and Adolescents was held in Manila, Philippines, on February 11, 2025.
This workshop was organized by the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry of Kohnodai Hospital, National Center for Global Health and Medicine (NCGM) in Japan.
NCGM has contributed to the promotion of mental health among children and adolescents through the Program for International Promotion of Japan’s Healthcare Technologies and Services.

In 2023, this project proceeded to become an international collaborative project among three Asian countries, including Indonesia.
In 2024, the project organized a meeting entitled “Meeting for Mental Health Literacy Project for Children and Adolescents in Southeast Asian Countries with the NCGM, Japan”.
The meeting brought together representatives from three Asian countries to discuss the current state of school mental health literacy education based on common formats.

The objectives of the workshop are as follows.
1) Describe the salient points of the NCGM child and adolescent mental health program outputs
2) Identify the enablers, barriers, and ways forward in the implementation of the 2018 Mental Health Act in Promoting School-based Mental Health Literacy

The methodology of the workshop is as follows.
1) Pre- and post-test and
2) Program Evaluation

On the 2nd day of this program, we visited the two high schools.
1st school: Panghulo National High School (Malabon City)
2nd school: Kaunlaran High School (Navotas City)

Through the workshop and high school visit, participants gained valuable learnings to improve mental health literacy education for children.