Ministries of Health and Education Sign Cooperation Agreement to Promote Mental Health Care in Schools

During the meeting of the Federal Council of Education (COFEDU) held today at the Pizzurno Palace, the Minister of Health of the Nation, Carla Vizzotti, and her counterpart for Education, Jaime Perczyk, signed a Cooperation Agreement with the aim of promoting care in mental health in the educational field, promoting the implementation of a comprehensive policy based on a health care model rooted in the community and with a perspective of rights and social justice.

Registered in the Federal Strategy for a Comprehensive Approach to Mental Health and in compliance with National Law 26,657 on Mental Health, the agreement provides among its agreements the creation of Listening Spaces in national universities —formalizing an initiative launched at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) at the end of 2022—in order to provide psychosocial support, within a framework of confidentiality, containment and guidance to improve the comprehensive health and mental health of people in the field of the educational community.

“Today we are summoned by the political decision to continue generating concrete actions with a federal perspective and articulated with the Ministry of Education and the 24 jurisdictions, to improve the lives of the adolescent and young population,” said Vizzotti.

Thus, he stressed that the signing of the agreement demonstrates that “we are working to reduce stigma and discrimination and to provide tools to the entire teaching team that cares for their students and students weaving bridges with the health system.”

For his part, Perczyk argued that “the educational system has the responsibility of addressing the demand for mental health by working together with health and thus building a path so that all young people receive the necessary attention, listening and care.”

In this line, both ministries undertake to make available guidelines, educational and communication materials that, from a pedagogical approach and the promotion of mental health, strengthen mental health care in state-run and private schools, from a perspective of rights and comprehensive health, as well as to carry out training actions for teachers, management teams, preceptors, school guidance teams at the secondary level, from a prevention and care approach in the educational field with a pedagogical perspective, promoting mental health and rights.

In addition, the setting up of intersectoral work tables between Health and Education at the jurisdictional level will be promoted -and the enhancement of existing tables- for the development of actions tending to strengthen the articulation between educational institutions and health effectors to local level with the aim of promoting active listening in daily school life and in specific situations of suffering from mental health problems.

Lastly, both portfolios are committed to offering and/or building instruments that allow the georeferencing of health providers at the local level and educational institutions, in order to facilitate the construction of networks between the different institutions that share the territory or to strengthen the existing.