|
Child psychiatryis a sub-speciality of psychiatry that provides care for children and adolescents with mental disorders. Although child psychiatrists only represent around 2.5 percent of all child psychiatrists in the United States, child psychiatry is responsible for over half of child psychotherapy sessions and child consultations related to child abuse or neglect.
Training programs vary by country, but generally child psychiatrists receive about five years of general psychiatric training followed by two to three years specialized training in child and adolescent psychiatry, including one year of clinical rotations in child and adolescent psychiatry. Training may be voluntary or required before one can be recognized as a child psychiatrist in a given country (e.g., residency or fellowship after medical school). Child Psychiatry Global Initiative works under the child psychiatrist Dr. Biniyam Gebremariam who is child and click and check adolescent psychiatry fellow at the child psychiatric unit of the Federal Teaching Hospital of Nnewi, Anambra State in Nigeria under a fellowship programme initiated by child psychiatry global initiative which aims to reduce child abuse among other child related stigma.
He has also worked at child psychiatric units in different developing countries like Kenya where he was exposed to huge number of child abuse cases especially sexual abuses. He works with his team members to raise awareness on child sexual abuse through talks in schools, raising funds for the survivors and providing free medication like prozac for patients with depression resulting from child sexual abuse. They also provide psycho-education for parents usually mothers usually single parents who are seento have child related stigma.
They also provide child psychiatry awareness to students who are information information officer in the university student’s union for child abuse prevention which has helped reduce child abuse among students at school and universities. This project is still piloting at the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN) Heart Foundation before expanding to other secondary schools in Africa where child sexual abuses are common . They also try to impact policy makers on child abuse legislation like child protection bill in Nigeria which was implemented recently. Recently Dr Biniyam Gebremariam represented child psychiatry initiatives at WPA general assembly 2018 held in India showing interest by change agents on child psychiatry growth worldwide.. |
