Perceived Barriers Related to School Mental Health Program: A Study from Four High Schools in West Java

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6463-112-8_42How to use a DOI?

Keywords

mental health; school; stigma; barrier

Abstract

Mental health issues frequently appear in youth and persist throughout adulthood. Interventions for adolescents’ mental health can be successfully carried out in schools. There are currently educational initiatives in place in Indonesia that emphasize mental health’s importance. Nevertheless, the actual implementation in practice is not a simple process. The purpose of this study is to determine the difficulties the school community faces due to the lack of a mental health policy. Through a series of semi-structured interviews, this qualitative study gathered information from 32 informants, including students, parents, school principals, mental health workers, and school counselors. Between April and December 2019, the research was conducted at four public schools in the Bogor City and Bogor District areas of West Java. Schools “A” and “B” were there to represent the schools in Bogor City, and Schools “C” and “D” were there to represent the schools in Bogor District. According to the research findings, as many as 77 percent of students (10 participants) were 16 years old, with the remaining 15 and 17 years old (3 participants). Seven students with high mental health scores were selected, and six of the informants were student committee members. The parents’ ages ranged from 43 to 67, with a mean age of 51.8, and their levels of education went from high school (one informant) to a master’s degree (one informant) to a bachelor’s degree (one informant) (66 percent or six informants). In addition, two of the informants were principals, four were school counselors, and one was involved in school administration. Also interviewed were three primary care mental health professionals. Several barriers continue to impede the implementation of mental health programs in schools, according to the findings of this study. These include a lack of understanding about mental health, a lack of specific human resources capable of screening and treating students’ mental health problems, a lack of money, and a high stigma associated with mental health conditions. The school’s current curriculum and extracurricular activities, such as religious and literacy activities, should be improved in the future. Adopting mental health initiatives in schools requires strategic policy support, government endorsement, partnership with the Ministries of Education and Health, and sufficient finance.

Copyright

© 2023 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

Download article (PDF)

TY  - CONF
AU  - Indri Y. Suryaputri
AU  - Rofingatul Mubasyiroh
AU  - Bunga C. Rosha
PY  - 2023
DA  - 2023/03/01
TI  - Perceived Barriers Related to School Mental Health Program: A Study from Four High Schools in West Java
BT  - Proceedings of the 1st International Conference for Health Research – BRIN (ICHR 2022)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 458
EP  - 468
SN  - 2468-5739
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-112-8_42
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6463-112-8_42
ID  - Suryaputri2023
ER  -