Shahid Akhter, editor, ETHealthworld, spoke to Isam Ghanim, President and CEO, ChildFund International USA, to figure out the challenges associated with millions of children deprived of their nurturing environment and how collaborative effort is needed to improve thier well-being.
Eradication of Malnutrition
Malnutrition is a global problem that’s faced by children everywhere, especially during the first 1000 days of any child’s life. Malnutrition not only affects the physical development of children, it has been proven that it affects many aspects of life later on, and it’s a complex problem because it is not just related to the accessibility or availability of food. It is part of the whole system of food security that affects families and children, including the knowledge of the parents as well as the physical environment where children live.
Psychoscial wellbeing of children
Because of the emerging information about what makes the health status of children better and better, it is really important not to underestimate the need to provide them with psychosocial support. Why is psychosocial support important? As mentioned, we focus on children as a whole. Nourished children also need psychosocial support, so that they grow up with a level of confidence about themselves, about their environment, which will equip them with the tools and skills that will allow them to develop healthy emotional health as well as relate to the environment, their peers, siblings, and parents in the best possible way. And in normal situations, these things happen by chance, but we learn the hard way that sometimes children may not be living in an environment that provides them with a psychosocially healthy environment. And in that case, we need to make sure that we intervene, provide the skills needed for parents to understand the psychosocial needs of their children, as well as when they are under stress, because sometimes there are emergencies, natural disasters, conflicts in some places in the world, etc., and we provide unique opportunities that provide a lot of stress to the children. So, in these cases, we focus on psychosocial support. So children are equipped with the psychological tools that will allow them to build resilience. And by resilience, I mean to help children and their family members absorb the shocks, recover from them, and adapt to the new environment.Mental Healthcare of Children
Mental health is one of the major focus areas, and I think we are learning more about it day after day. And why mental health is becoming important at a global level. It’s because the world is transforming and becoming more digital. The interaction between children and their environment is changing. Children are spending more time online than playing and dealing with their siblings, and as the world becomes more connected, you are bombarded with information every hour and every minute. Children are not isolated from this environment, and therefore mental health, especially during the COVID period of 2–3 years of being closed, is becoming very important. The good news is that the world has made huge progress, especially during the past two to three years, in making sure that mental health is de-stigmatised.Until a few years ago, mental health was stigmatised, but now the world has made significant progress. I am very happy with the celebrities coming out and being open about mental health issues. Mental health is becoming a requirement and a need that schools, teachers, counsellors, and parents are trained to recognise, and recognising that you have a mental health issue is the first step to addressing it.
ChildFund
ChildFund is a global organisation; we are part of an alliance that consists of 11 members. We work throughout the world in Asia, Africa, and America. Last year, we reached about 21 million children and their family members. We receive support and funding from various donors, and we collaborate with governments. “It’s a waste of energy not to work in a coordinated manner and in partnership with the national health system run by the government, and you really need to establish what your entry points are that you need to strengthen in order to provide access to people.” As a matter of fact, through our programmes, our focus is definitely on children. We want children to grow up healthy, educated, skilled, and safe. And because of our sponsorship model, we can make commitments to work with children throughout their three life stages, from being young children to adolescents and youth until they become adults. We focus on education, health, and skills and training for youth so that they are ready to be self-sufficient adults and children. As you can imagine, we cannot do this work without relying on our strong partnerships with local organizations. So, one of the major defining characteristics of the ChildFund model is that we work in partnership with the government and through local organisations to develop their capacity to be able to deliver services to children in an effective manner.
One important aspect of the ChildFund model is that we treat the child as a whole. We need to see children as part of a family and as part of a community, and we also need to focus on their psychological, physical, and emotional development as a whole. As I mentioned, in ChildFund, we focus on the child as a whole, and therefore, an important aspect of healthcare delivery is that we recognise that the best way to deliver health services to children is to make sure that their guardians and parents are equipped with the information, knowledge, and skills that allow them to understand the need to access healthcare because that is the very system. The other part of our ChildFund model is to emphasise the frontline, whether it’s the school, the health dispensary, or even the midwife. We need to train these people to understand what it means to be responsible for health delivery to children. Where the frontline connects basically through a very strong referral system to the national health systems. When you work on that, then you will be able to ensure that people get the preventive measures as well as the treatment and diagnostics when the cases require a little bit of advanced medical intervention.
