PPSEAWA International

Children, The Family and Health: What it Takes to Give Children Long Life

The Singapore Workshop: The Discussion Groups Reports

Discussion Format for Parent, Community Worker and Educator Groups

  1. One hour: Presentation of papers / reports by participants, about 5 minutes per person
  2. One hour: Discussion and sharing of ideas
  3. One half to three quarters hour: Formulate an Action Plan for PPSEAWA Countries to be presented at the afternoon session.
    1. Three urgent action items
    2. Three longer range items
    3. Prioritize the above items.

Community workers Group Discussion

Group Members:

The community workers group first listened to the papers from the representatives of each country. Then they listed concerns and marked each time the issue was repeated. Following that, the short and long term action plans were devised. The diversity of the group made this task difficult to reach consensus.

Reported first are the concerns of each country represented:

Australia: Malnutrition is a concern in some areas while poor nutrition or poor choices a concern elsewhere. A great concern is how to coordinate the health and education systems for maximum efficiency and delivery of services on behalf on children and families.

Cook Islands: Issues of continued ways to strengthen families and ways to provide greater legal protection for children and their rights for better health.

Philippines: Malnutrition, diarrhea and pneumonia are the three major conditions threatening children.

Pakistan: More effort needed to overcome children’s diseases: diarrhea, pneumonia, and measles as well as Malaria and malnutrition. The female child was discussed at length. First is discrimination, beginning with alarming rates of failure of girl children to survive because male children are preferred. If girls do survive, the high rates of abuse are a concern. Early marriages as well as low literacy mean girls continue to have lowered expectations and opportunities in life.

Indonesia: Health services are present, but access to services is limited by spread out geography among many islands. Greater coordination of health care is needed, particularly in rural areas. Malnutrition is a problem Children generally enjoy better health in the last decade, but there are concerns that worsening economic conditions could threaten that level of service. Greater protection of disabled children is required.

New Zealand: Maori children in the country in the greatest need of health care. Some parents do not understand and trust immunizations so as many as 50% go without. Main causes of death include poisoning and injuries. Meningitis asthma and child abuse were included in the list of high concerns.

Thailand: The instability of the economy has lead to increased problems, particularly in the urban slums. Diarrhea and infections were cited for high priority. Ignorance by undereducated parents is a large problem.

Malaysia: An influx of immigrant workers has re-introduced diseases which had been irradicated, such as TB, meningitis and hepatitis.

India: Health related causes of death in infants include diarrhea, infection, measles, malaria and malnutrition as mentioned by a number of other in previous reports. Children from 1 to 10 years old suffer anemia, worm infestations, scabies, ear infections and dental carries, all of which need more attention to improve the quality of life.

The plan for urgent action

The plan for long term action

Educator Discussion Group

Group Members:

The Educator’s Group found that there were three main concerns which emerged from the papers presented and the discussion which followed. They outlined these concerns into education of parents, health issues for young children and the role of educators in health concerns.

  1. Education of Parents
    1. Long term issues
      • Family Planning and Reproductive Health
      • Parenting classes taught in High Schools
    2. Urgent Issues
      • Develop and strengthen communication skills
      • Encorporate nutrition into a developmental health curriculum
      • Increase understanding of health and hygene issues including immunisation and sanitation
      • Understanding of social / emotional relationships
  2. Health Issues for Young Children Under 10 years of Age
    1. Urgent Issues
      • Compulsary immunisation
      • Screening of health issues in schools
      • Early identification of students at educational risk
      • Stress management
    2. Long Term Issues
      • Inter-agency approach for access to information (shared knowledge, strategic planning and implementation)
      • Encorporate Values Education into the curriculum
      • Educating young children to become effective parents (developmental approach)
  3. The Role of Educators
    1. Urgent Issues
      • Effective Health Education Programs to be implemented across all levels in a cross-curricular approach.
    2. Long Term
      • Teacher training programs to include courses in Holistic Health Education

Recommendations:

  1. That Government and NGOs implement Parent Education Programs
  2. That a comprehensive Health Program be implemented in an inter-agency approach with special emphasis on Values Education
  3. That effective Health Education programs be implemented in the National Curriculum and form a part of teacher training courses.

Our message: “The day will come when nations are judged by the well-being of the people.”

Parent Discussion Group

Members of the Discussion Group:

Literacy: Compulsary basic education and good adult education

Responsible Parenting: Strengthening of families, community support systems, father’s involvement and stong government support agencies are all necessary to help build responsible parenting

Stress: Increase awareness of stress management techniques in the community

Abuse: Make penalties more severe for perpetrators and strengthen community support systems and preventative education programmes.

Goal: To improve health and living quality of children and families.


Last Modified: November 29, 2002