A proposed
Student Mental Health
Act .
It was presented today in the Chamber by the Unione degli Universitari and the Rete degli Studenti Medi together with the parliamentarians Elisabetta Piccolotti, of Avs, Elisa Pirro of the M5S, Rachele Scarpa, promoter of the parliamentary intergroup for the protection and promotion of mental health, and Nicola Zingaretti of the Pd.
The proposal comes after the dissemination with the collaboration of Spi Cgil of a questionnaire throughout the country, which saw over 30 thousand responses.
The results of the questionnaire, it was explained, "highlighted many elements of concern: the most experienced feeling during the pandemic period was boredom for 76% of respondents; anxiety also emerged for 59% and a sense of loneliness for 57%.Then there are particularly alarming results: 28% of the sample experienced eating disorders, while 14.5% experienced self-harm.In the light of these data, we hoped that politics would react to try to support mental health of students and prevent any form of discomfort".
"That was not the case - says
Camilla Piredda
, Coordinator of the Union of University Students - as we have seen the only positive responses from individual institutes, universities or at most regions.
But there was a lack of an overall response and adequate funding: thus, today we are forced in most cases to private psychologists, whose average price for a 60-minute session is around 70/80 euros.
Even the psychologist bonus, a temporary but useful solution, was refinanced this year for only 5 million euros, with an 80% cut compared to the 2022 funding. Politics has decided to ignore the needs and requests of a entire generation: in fact, almost all of the sample we intercepted last year said they considered psychological support in their school or university useful.
Really,
one in three students would like to use it
.”
"The bill - explains Camilla Velotta, of the Executive of middle school students - aims to establish, regulate and finance a school and university psychological, psychotherapeutic and counseling assistance service, which can be based on professional personnel and interface with the health service territory, ensuring that students who need it are taken care of. We ask that the State invest at least one hundred million euros a year to recruit multidisciplinary teams of professionals in the area, whose skills must guarantee assistance in relation to specific needs of the students".
(HANDLE).