246 | KY YEU HOITHAO QUOC TE VE SUC KHOE TAM THAN TRE EM VIET NAM LAN THU V CHILD MENTAL HEALTH AND WELLBEING: EXPLORING THE NEXUS BETWEEN THE CHILD AS AN AGENT AND THE ENVIRONMENTAL
Trang 1246 | KY YEU HOITHAO QUOC TE VE SUC KHOE TAM THAN TRE EM VIET NAM LAN THU V
CHILD MENTAL HEALTH AND WELLBEING:
EXPLORING THE NEXUS BETWEEN THE CHILD AS
AN AGENT AND THE ENVIRONMENTAL CONTEXT
Anne Sigfrid Gronseth', Ragnhild DybdahP
ABSTRACT:
Any child, or idea of childhood, exists in an environment which contains social, cultural, physical and historical relations and characteristics To study and support children as they perceive and engage in the surrounding local social life, it is necessary to produce knowledge
from the nexus between the agentive child and the interacting environmental complexity In this
presentation, we wiil discuss insights from social- and health anthropology underlining how social
practices and cultural values interplay in views of children and senses of wellbeing The offered perspectives will be used to shed light on how children’s mental health and mental health problems can be understood and approached Secondly, we will apply the concept of the “developmental niche” (Super & Harkness, 1986) to the field of mental health literacy The niche consists of three
subsystems surrounding the child: the physical and social settings of the child’s life, the culturally
regulated customs of child rearing and childcare, and the ideas and psychology of caregivers
Finally, we will present an illustration, to suggest practical uses by clinicians and community
workers from the approach of ‘child interaction in an environmental context’
! JNN University, Norway Email: anne.gronseth@inn.no,
4 University of Bergen, Norway.