Prof. Olayinka Omigbodun, the Director, Centre for Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMH), disclosed that The University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, has trained 15 additional doctors and nurses in the Master programme in Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMH).
She said that the figure brought the number of psychiatrists trained at the Centre from inception in 2012 to 43. Omigbodun added that the Centre was established with a grant from The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in 2012.
She further enlightened that the mandate of the Centre was to provide support toward building Child and Adolescent Mental Health capacity in the African region and beyond and that the Centre was a multi-disciplinary one and has professionals from Africa, Asia, Europe and North America, with a major mandate to design a Master of Science programme in CAMH.
She said,“The objectives of the Centre include the development of forum for multi-professional, multi-disciplinary, multi-agency team of trainers, researchers, providers and recipients to work together to improve mental health. The centre strives to support the development of training, research and service in CAMH in Nigeria and other African countries.
It also develops, monitors and evaluates child and adolescent public mental health programmes in the African region. The Centre runs the Master of Science programme in CAMH and post graduate diploma in CAMH.’’
Omigbodun disclosed that the Centre has trained post-graduate students from different parts of Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra-Leone, Eritrea, Kenya, Zambia and Zimbabwe since inception.
She added that the Centre would continue to pursue its aim of developing good child mental health, stressing that “there is no child health without mental health.’’ (NAN)
