A.P.P.L.E.

Atsiprašom, dar lietuviškai  neišvertėm

Psychology, Special Ed, and Social Work discussion page

From: Dainius Puras <usvvc@tdd.lt>
To: antvalan@takas.lt <antvalan@takas.lt>
Cc: skirma@pub.osf.lt <skirma@pub.osf.lt>; MyraSG@aol.com <MyraSG@aol.com>;
applemail@erols.com <applemail@erols.com>; vvebra@post.omnitel.net
<vvebra@post.omnitel.net>; Torisc@ashley.cofc.edu <Torisc@ashley.cofc.edu>;
KMDUNLAP@email.uncc.edu <KMDUNLAP@email.uncc.edu>
Date: Sunday, December 06, 1998 8:26 AM
Subject: Re: APPLE - coordination of social work, psychology & spec.ed

Dainius Puras wrote:

Dear friends,
        Emilija successfully managed to provoke me, so I am proposing now - with a lot of ambivalence - to think about some coordination of our three groups. First, we should meet here in Vilnius - three local groups, but it would be also very important to have a response from American coordinators.
        One idea for next summer would be to have a conference or seminar on the topics which naturally belong to, or have to do with, each of the  three groups.  Just for example - integration of exceptional children, parent work, prevention of bullying, suicides, child abuse, delinquency, drug and alcohol abuse, etc., etc.. There is no need to explain, I think, that these problems are growing at dramatic rates in Lithuania, and the methods which are used for managing of these problems, are to my opinion, good for nothing.  There is no real infrastructure and philosophy for effective prevention of all these growing and threatening phenomena.  Being a child and adolescent psychiatrist, I am officially working for the health care system, but for many years we have been trying trying in Vilnius Child Development Center and Clinic for Social Pediatrics and Child Psychiatry to facilitate interagency cooperation by involving health, social welfare and education in joint projects.  I have to confess that my experience is very sad, especially in working with three ministries, but even at the level of municipalities these three sectors do not cooperate. I know that this is a global problem - even for developed coutries, including U.S., but still there have been more or less successful experiences.
        My greatest concern for the moment is prevention of suicides and prevention of juvenile delinquency.  Dramatic development of events in Panevezys is a reflection of the tragic situation throughout the story and is a very good example that these two problems cannot be solved separately.  In my opinion, the National Program of Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency, (which, by the way, is coordinated by the Ministry of Education) has gone in the wrong direction, by putting emphasis on those children who are already consequences or victims of the vicious system. Teenagers who terrorize their peers (who then commit suicides) are also victims of a stupid system; the only way of effective prevention is to work with families who have problems and with their children when they are preschool or when they are 7-9 years of age, starting to develop signs of school failure, hyperactivity, conduct disorder, etc. But nobody cares!  Then we find these children at the age of 15, after they have become criminals, and we feed again the repressive system of jails with these young criminals, and the repressive system asks more and more funds form the Government and is successful.  In Panevezys police, I think, will ask now for additional funds, to struggle with "bad" adolescents who terrorize good adolescents.  Nothing will change in this case, and the idea of effective prevention will stay again in the waiting list "for better times, when the economic situation improves...". I understand that we have to be realistic - we will not change the system radically.  But still, I think it would be worthwhile to try to do something with support of American colleagues.  I was impressed during one congress by the famous American researcher James Garbarino from Cornell (I suppose) who analyzed very critically the American situation in the field of juvenile criminality.  Regretfully, Lithuanian reality in this aspect is nearer to American, than to European reality (in Europe rate of homicides completed by adolescents is three times less than in U.S.; and I feel that in Lithuania we have similar rates to American). Well, in the States communities have separated, so that there are safe places and dangerous places.  In Lithuania at this time we have a situation, where some 8 year old children on the 1st of September share their impressions from holidays spent in Florida or at least in Paris, and the others have parents who cannot afford to buy shoes for their 8 year old to go to school.  Is it difficult to imagine a possible scenario of events in this situation?  The atmosphere of social toxicity is rising, and more and more children and families become alergic to this kind of ecological crisis.
        Without being too emotional,  I just want to tell you that we urgently need a new strategy for solving these problems, and the only way,  it seems for me, is interagency cooperation and involvement of all parties concerned - Government, professionals, municipalities and communities.  It may appear that posttotalitarian mentality will still hinder new strategies, but on the other hand, my feeling is that we have no right to be passive in this situation.
        One good thing is that we have a good President.   On December 3 I was among a group of mental health professionals to be invited by him to a meeting (Minister of Health, representatives from Social Welfare Ministry) to discuss the Mental Health Strategy in Lithuania.  Tis meeting was not specifically adressed to children (it would be good to have such  a one) so the Ministry of Education was not there.  My impression was that the President understands the need for strategic changes better than each of us, but even his pressure may be insufficient for governmental interagency coordination to succeed.
       How could APPLE contribute? Let me announce the discussion opened to all concerned.

 Sincerely
 Dainius Puras

Emilija's comments:

To all concerned:

        For the last week I've been getting correspondence (in Lithuanian--which is why I haven't got around to sharing it with you) from dr. Dainius Puras (special ed focus group chair) and dr. Antanas Valantinas (psychology focus group chair) and both of them have been talking to me about exactly the same problems!  And they also involve the issues that our social work strands have been dealing with.
        I told them:  isn't it about time they got together with each other, maybe over some beers, and held a focus group meeting of all three groups.  And we schould do the same at this end.  While special ed, psychology and social work will continue to have issues that are specific only to them, the issues Dainius raises touch all three.  I even suggested to him, that maybe one of our offerings this summer could be half coursework (as we traditionally do), half conference-type setting.
        I'm still waiting for the minutes of their focus group meetings, from which I think we'll get even more food for thought, but I think Dainius' letter is a good start for discussion.

More later,  Emilija