In Australia and some parts of the world, narrative therapy is a discipline and profession duly supported by government. It deals with family, particularly young people, from 5 to 13 years old, who are troubled by various educational, emotional, social and relationship problems.
Together with a good friend (a longtime Inquirer contributor and a book writer) I have been working with for more than three years, I have been looking for a Philippine resident narrative therapist for two troubled young children (9 and 13 years old) whose mother and father are both drug addicts.
The parents agreed that we take care of the children away from them to spare the minors further harm (verbal and physical abuse). Such unlawful incidents were reported in various barangay offices by the children. We are in a quandary as to how to provide these human beings a bright future, especially now that we are in the twilight years of our earthly lives.
We sought the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s assistance, and the person we talked to simply shrugged, saying, among other things, that they don’t have sufficient budget and a specialist for the children’s care. In reaction, you can fairly expect the blood pressure of a senior citizen to rise and watch him raise his voice and utter: “We are solving the problem of a dysfunctional family, and we have a government office which is also dysfunctional?”
The Australian government has a psychological medicine care unit specializing in narrative therapy, even employing voice recordings to facilitate the process of delivering the
required services.
The Duterte administration is focused on killing drug lords and small-time drug peddlers, but it fails to consider providing good programs for the victims’ children whose psychological, mental, physical and social status are greatly disturbed?
A suggestion: the DSWD or the Department of Health should consider formulating effective programs to address this specific problem.
And will someone, please, help us?
Quo vadis, children of drug addicts?
ISIDRO C. VALENCIA, Taguig City