Hawkins Rhiannon
Youth Advocate, Royal College of Psychiatrists, London, UK.
Child Adolesc Ment Health. 2022 Feb;27(1):73-74. doi: 10.1111/camh.12528. Epub 2021 Dec 10.
Increased attention and youth action on Climate Change have increased global societal awareness of the climate crisis. However, this has not come without a cost, lack of international political action and increased media attention towards climate change has triggered a surge in young people experiencing Eco Distress. I discuss how increased levels of Eco Distress experienced by young people has uncovered vast inequalities within child and adolescent mental health provision and research across the globe, which follow geopolitical and Economic divides formed during the colonial period. I also discuss how psychiatrists can embrace different knowledge systems and collaborate across socio-political barriers, to support and enable equality in the access of mental health care for all young people, regardless of location in helping manage Eco Distress or climate-related worries. I conclude this piece by suggesting actions which psychiatrists can undertake to show themselves to be allies with young people, in not only tackling climate change, but systemic inequality harboured in child and adolescent mental health care.
对气候变化的更多关注以及青年行动提高了全球社会对气候危机的认识。然而,这并非没有代价,国际政治行动的缺乏以及媒体对气候变化关注度的增加引发了经历生态困扰的年轻人数量的激增。我将探讨年轻人经历的生态困扰程度的增加是如何揭示全球儿童和青少年心理健康服务与研究中存在的巨大不平等的,这些不平等遵循殖民时期形成的地缘政治和经济划分。我还将讨论精神科医生如何接受不同的知识体系并跨越社会政治障碍进行合作,以支持并实现为所有年轻人提供平等的心理健康护理,无论他们身处何地,帮助他们应对生态困扰或与气候相关的担忧。在本文结尾,我提出了一些行动建议,精神科医生可以通过这些行动表明自己是年轻人的盟友,不仅要应对气候变化,还要解决儿童和青少年心理健康护理中存在的系统性不平等问题。