Elizabeth Allieu stands in front of a classroom of preteen and teen girls, encouragingly telling them that there are no wrong answers to the question she just posed:. A few of the teens shyly offer some word associations: Frustration.
Allieu leads the room in clapping for each girl who speaks up, then launches into her own explanation. Mental health can mean when your mind is sick. Most say no. The crazy yard? For decades, the deeply stigmatized facility had no electricity, running water, or psychiatric medications.
Now, Sierra Leone Psychiatric Teaching Hospital is a chain-free facility with modern amenities and stocked pharmacy shelves, where improved services are enabling clinicians to care for more outpatients than inpatients. Amid the fear, misunderstanding, and sometimes cruelty that surrounds people living with mental health conditions, the hospital is slowly but surely changing the face of mental health care.
Nonetheless, one group had been left out of this process: children. The new unit was spearheaded by Allieu and is the reason for her visit to the girls, all of whom have suffered severe abuse and now live in a group home run by a local nonprofit.
You talk to a teacher or someone very close who you trust, and come with that person to us. And we can help. After asking each girl her name and what she wants to be when she grows up, Allieu goes on to deliver the same message to two more classrooms of children and teens from the home, ensuring they and their caregivers know about this new resource for counseling and psychiatric support.
