Ministry wants meeting on child and adolescent psychopathology held in S’wak
KUCHING: The Ministry of Welfare, Community Well Being, Women, Family and Childhood Development is to persuade the state government to have the 13th International Conference on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology held in Sarawak.
Its minister Datuk Fatimah Abdullah said moving the conference to Sarawak is timely because it aspires to be a developed state where focus is on the wellbeing of society, especially on the social and emotional aspects of life.
“This idea of the conference and the subject was brought forward by Professor Dr Cecilia A Essau of Roehampton University, UK, who is an expert in the field of studies, who happens to be from Sarawak herself,” she told reporters after a discussion with the professor on the matter at her office yesterday.
“The professor has done many keynote addresses on the topics and articles on the subject and she wants to share her expertise in this field since she is from here as it can bring so much benefit to our people in Kuching and in Sarawak and the whole region of South East Asia and the South Pacific region,” she added.
Fatimah said the topic is very relevant as it touches on people’s behaviour and talks about anxiety in children and adolescents “which is something we do not know much about”.
“Our state government is now very much emphasising on community wellbeing and society wellbeing. The conference is the opportunity to understand this issue and anxiety problems in our young in a holistic way,” she said, adding it could be detrimental to our wellbeing if such problems and behaviours are not treated.
Fatimah elaborated that our society and our life have changed, and so has the environment we live in.
“Do we feel good, do we feel pressured, stressful, happy and so on? And this feel- good feeling is very important to a person, especially the young. We have to understand what contributes to this feel- good feeling and how it links from adolescence to our life in the future,” she elaborated.
She said the conference would be of great benefit to professionals, care givers and also those in this region.
“There will 10 keynote speakers who deliberate their expertise and knowledge in the field and it will be followed by a handson workshop. These speakers have spoken in the previous 12 conferences,” she pointed out.
Sarawak Convention Bureau business development manager Donny Tan Yee said they would officially write to Roehampton University to bring the experts and the conference to Sarawak and to gain their trust that the state can host such an international event.
“We are working on our proposal and to deliver the matter together with the ministry to the state government to agree on it,” he said.