Saphire Longmore focuses on motherhood, mental-health projects

Tash-Shauna Doeman, Gleaner Intern

She first came to prominence as Miss Jamaica World in 2000, but she also entered politics as the candidate for the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), in Eastern St Andrew in the 2011 general election. She replaced St Aubyn Bartlett at very short notice, going up against the People's National Party's Andre Hylton - and did rather well in the race.

Describing herself as a psychiatrist with special interests in lifestyle development for individuals and groups, she is currently doing work with troubled teens, individuals with varied complaints including sports competitors and persons in the corporate world. She told The Gleaner that more and more persons are recognising that mental-health management is like health management, generally. "Prevention is the best cure, early detection and monitoring are the best ways to treat mental-health issues, so I am getting requests to review an individual or group and make recommendations for improved functioning and performance," Dr Longmore said.

But these days, Dr Saphire Longmore prefers to be known as a mother of two boys, to whom she refers as, "my two soldiers". They are two-year-old is Axl, who was her travelling partner on the campaign trail, and eight-month old Neo. They keep her on her toes as she rushes to tend to them.

After her relatively short stint in the political arena, Dr Longmore returned her focus to marriage and motherhood. She refers to herself as an all-or-nothing person, therefore, she decided to give her all to parenting. "I am an all-or-nothing person and I prefer to do one job and do it properly, so I chose to be a mother," Dr Longmore told The Gleaner in a telephone interview.

However, since February of this year, she has been slowly getting back into her psychiatric work as a consultant for the Reducing Juvenile Population in State-supported Institutions (RJPSI) Project. "I have been doing part-time consultancy for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) for the children in the juvenile facilities," she says.

The RJPSI project is a joint effort by the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, Ministry of Youth & Culture and UNICEF to improve the overall well-being of state-care children.

"It's very impactful on persons who are very vulnerable in the society and I try to channel my altruistic spirit through this (RJPSI Project), until I'm able to do more" she says. As a result of being a mother and her active role as a consultant for the RJPSI project, she believes it has increased her level of sensitivity in terms of awareness. "It hits you with whole other level of compassion," she says.

Fix the Problems with Adults

As she works closely with juveniles, Dr Longmore's message is, "Fix the problems with adults and you will fix 90 per cent of the problems with children." She believes that many of the issues the children in juvenile facilities are as a result of our adults. "It is due to the fact that there is either no parenting or there is poor parenting," she says. Additionally, Dr Longmore believes that some of the adults have issues of their own, which affect the children.

"If we work to solve these issues, we would go a far way in solving the problems of our children."

To career-oriented mothers, who juggle both the work and motherhood, her advice is that "it's all about time management and organisation", and in her case - a very supportive husband. She adds, "The little that you do, make sure it is good quality, and to some extent, quantity. Make sure that whatever you impart is the very best from the beginning, so if you're teaching them to eat, try to give the most nutritious food that you, can and if you are teaching them language, teach them the best way to express themselves from the very beginning because prevention is always better than cure."

tash-shauna.doeman@gleanerjm.com