SEN. Sherwin Gatchalian has filed a bill that seeks to strengthen the promotion and delivery of mental health services in basic education schools.

Senate Bill (SB) 379 or the “Basic Education Mental Health and Well-Being Promotion Act,” one of Gatchalian’s priority measures, seeks to counter the negative effects of the pandemic on mental health and socioemotional development of learners, teachers and other non-teaching personnel.

The chairman of the Senate basic education committee said that his bill aims to institutionalize the Mental Health and Well-Being Program which will provide mental health services, emotional, developmental, and preventive programs and other support services in all public and private basic education schools.

The proposed measure also seeks to hire mental health professionals and deploy them to public elementary, secondary and vocational institutions.

The measure also seeks to establish a Mental Health and Well-Being Center in every public and private basic education school in the country.

The Center will be responsible for delivering mental health and wellbeing services.

To address the shortage of guidance counselors, Gatchalian pushed for the creation of a sufficient number of plantilla items for the positions of guidance counselor and guidance associate, a new position created under the measure.

A guidance associate should be a graduate with a bachelor’s degree in guidance and counseling, psychology, social work, human services, and other allied disciplines or any related courses.

Gatchalian also proposed to raise the Salary Grades of Guidance Counselor 1 from SG 11 (P25,439) to SG 16 (P38,150), Guidance Counselor 2 from SG 12 (P27,608) to SG 17 (P41,508), and Guidance Counselor 3 from SG 13 (P29,798) to SG 18 (P45,203).

“Titiyakin natin na ang ating mga paaralan ay may sapat na bilang ng mga propesyonal at dalubhasa pagdating sa mental health. Napapanahon ito lalo na’t patuloy tayong bumabangon mula sa pinsala ng pandemya, kung saan nakita natin ang matinding pinsala sa mental health ng ating mga guro at mga magaaral (We will ensure that our schools will have sufficient number of professionals and experts when it comes to mental health. This is timely, especially now that we continue to rise up from the damages brought by the pandemic, wherein we have seen how hard the damages have affected the mental health of our teachers and learners),” said Gatchalian.