Horizon View Primary holds mental health and substance use day
Miss Soweto Tsakane Sono attended in her capacity as an occupational health therapist from Westview Clinic to raise awareness of the social challenges the youth of today face.
Horizon View Primary School’s Grade Six and Sevens had the honour of sitting in during a visit from West View and Discoverers Clinic on July 21 as part of their mental health month campaigns aimed at raising awareness around social issues to prepare learners for their futures.
About 10 occupational therapists, social workers, and facilitators were in attendance and delivered an informative and engaging presentation on the dangers of popular substances such as hubbly bubbly, tobacco, and Marijuana.
The therapists also touched on the importance of planning and goal setting.
Miss Soweto Tsakane Sono, who is also an occupational therapist for Westview Clinic, said that their clinic does these campaigns because they always see how substance abuse is affecting the youth in the country, and the victims they work with at the clinic also suffer from mental health because of their substance abuse.
“Based on what we see at the clinic, a lot of them are ending up with very bad mental illnesses and that means they cannot go back to school because they are so badly affected, they are unable to get employment as their brains are not functioning as they used to,” she said.
Deigh-Ann Edwards, an occupational therapist for Discoverers Clinic, whose first love in occupational therapy is mental health, said that the event is a preventative one and mentioned that these grades are a very vulnerable population that is at an experimental stage as they are transitioning to high school.
“This population is also particularly important because they are our link to the greater community and we are relying on them for access to their parents and grandparents to spread the word about the abuse of substance and its effect on a person,” she said.
Sphesihle Ngidi, a social worker at Westview, said that she sees patients that are struggling with substance abuse, both alcohol and drugs, and mentioned that the clinic has an outpatient unit that offers after-care programmes which help them with their transition back into society.
Learners were very excited and interactive as they got to engage in a Q&A session which saw many learners wanting to know more.
Lebogang Mashaba, a Grade Six learner said that the event is special as they are learning about the impact substance abuse has on their bodies and are aware of the diseases it can bring such as lung cancer and so forth.
Tsakane left learners with the following words to remember, ‘If a doctor did not give it to you, do not take it’ and encouraged them to say that ‘if anyone cannot respect my no, they do not love me’.
