Mental health and psychosocial wellbeing of children and young people in Viet Nam

In partnership with UNICEF Viet Nam, the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA) and the Institute for Family and Gender Studies, ODI has carried out a study exploring the mental health and psychosocial wellbeing of children and young people in selected provinces and cities in Viet Nam. The study addressed four broad research questions:

What is the prevalence of mental health and psychosocial problems, including suicide among Vietnamese children, adolescents and youth?
Which factors in the Vietnamese context place children, adolescents and youth at risk, and which factors act as protective factors for mental health and psychosocial problems?
What laws and policies exist around mental health and psychosocial wellbeing in Viet Nam?
What are the existing mental health and psychosocial service provisions and programmes for children, adolescents and youth in Viet Nam?

The study provides a set of policy and programmatic recommendations which include: promoting better and more coordinated policies on mental health and psychological wellbeing for children and young people; increasing the quality and quantity of human resources, particularly counsellors, social workers, psychiatrists and psychologists for children and young people; and raising awareness at all levels of the need to address children and young people’s psychosocial wellbeing, as well as the existing support services.

A report and a number of briefings were produced from the study and launched at a dissemination workshop in Hanoi in February 2018. Opened and chaired by MOLISA, it was stated that findings from this study would inform further actions of the Ministry regarding how to address children and young people’s mental health and psychosocial wellbeing.

All the briefings, including the executive summary, key findings and recommendations, as well as two briefings focusing on suicide are available for download from the UNICEF website.

The dissemination workshop received wide press coverage in Viet Nam, with a number of media establishments reporting on the study results and the event in English and in Vietnamese.