Efforts To Enhance Mental Health Among School-Aged Children During The Covid-19 Pandemic Through The Teacher And Parent Empowerment

Abstract

School-aged children, as a developmental stage, are a group at high risk for mental health issues, particularly during this pandemic of COVID-19. Children may be perpetrators, witnesses, or victims of violence or irregularities perpetrated directly or through social media. This community service activity is designed to improve the mental health of children during the COVID-19 pandemic through early detection, prevention and early treatment of mental health issues through parental and teacher empowerment programs. When children learn online and do more activities at home with their families, there are many factors that affect children's mental health. For instance, cyberbullying, addiction to gadgets and the Internet, withdrawing from family interactions, anxiety, dishonesty and discipline in the performance of duties and children as witnesses and victims of abuseby those closest to them. This is not widely known by the school, teachers, counsellors and parents clearly, which results in the state of the child getting worse. Through an empowerment program that was conducted with socialization and training on early detection, preventive efforts and early treatment of mental health problems among school-aged children, they can discover early deviations that occur and take preventive measures with early treatment efforts. Henceforth, through this empowerment program, teachers and parents work together to carry out counselling activities and reflection sessions to understand the issues faced by students so that they can intervene immediately. Teachers and parents can work as a team to help children improve physical and mental health through online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic