JPA president wants more post-Melissa mental wellness checks for students

WESTERN BUREAU:

Nashá Patterson, president of the Jamaica Prefects’ Association (JPA), is calling for greater attention to be paid to students who had traumatic experiences during the passage of Hurricane Melissa, to ensure they are coping well with their individual challenges.

Patterson made the appeal while speaking to The Gleaner on Tuesday, ahead of the JPA’s planned national forum on mental health and other issues affecting high school students. The forum, which is slated for later this week. is part of the JPA’s series of events for National Prefects’ Week, which began on March 1.

“Hurricane Melissa was in October and, following that, the mental wellness interventions are not consistent, since we are not seeing the visitations to come and have sessions with the students. As it relates to the professionals who are delegated for that, I am not seeing them visiting my school, and my school is in St Elizabeth, which was one of the worst-hit parishes, and we are not seeing those specialists continuously coming,” said Patterson, a student of Hampton School in Malvern, St Elizabeth.

“We are still seeing the ripple effects of Hurricane Melissa, and we need these individuals to continuously come into the schools and check up on the students. Just because the hurricane came last year does not mean that, ‘Oh, we were traumatised, but one week afterwards we are back in school and we are fine.’ We are not fine, so we need to see these individuals coming into the schools and talking to the students, and that is not happening,” Patterson continued.

Last month it was reported that the JPA had created virtual platforms for prefects to share their experiences and provide updates on their emotional well-being, following reports of mental health issues surfacing after the Category 5 Hurricane Melissa’s devastating impact on October 28.

SENSITIVE TO PRESSURES

According to Patterson, parents and school administrators must be more sensitive to the mental pressures that students are likely to face, instead of dismissing any concerns that children may express to them.

“Parents, administrators, and guardians are the individuals we are surrounded by on a day-to-day basis, but they grew up in different times, with different rules and parenting styles,” she said. “They are the ones that we see affecting our mental health issues, and if we go and tell our parents, ‘Mommy, I want a mental health break’, or ‘I feel overwhelmed by school’, then they say, ‘What do you mean? You’re not missing school, because you need perfect attendance’, and they do not understand that going in an environment that does not change can genuinely mentally drain you.

“I am not saying that mental health is not being addressed, but I just think the way in which we have been addressing it is slightly flawed. If we turn around and engage with our parents and administrators a bit more, or include them in the dialogue, then we will actually make more steps in bettering the issue of mental health,” Patterson continued. “When our parents, administrators, and guidance counsellors understand the issues that are at hand, then the issue of mental health will become better.”

The Southern Regional Health Authority reported on February 11 that it has delivered mental health care to approximately 2,000 residents of St Elizabeth, out of the 135,000 people in the parish who were impacted by Hurricane Melissa.

Before that, on November 1, the Ministry of Health and Wellness announced a new initiative to provide mental health support to residents traumatised by the storm, particularly in the hardest-hit parishes. At the time, several communities in St Elizabeth were still grappling with the infrastructural damage and psychological effects of Hurricane Beryl’s passage in 2024.

christopher.thomas@gleanerjm.com