St. Maarten has a cooperation agreement with Amsterdam City, amongst the many projects that are ongoing in relation to this agreement is the Arkin and Mental Health agreement.
Arkin is the psychiatric and addiction care center for the city of Amsterdam. Presently on St. Maarten are Ed van Leeuwen, psychiatric nurse and head of the Ambulant Care and Crisis Intervention unit and Hans van de Moosdijk Social Psychiatric Nurse. They are conducting a 2-week course for health care workers on St. Maarten.
The training is about basic knowledge in psychiatry, the different illnesses and treatment methods, addiction care and most important early detection of mental health problems.
It is an intensive training for 20 health care workers from the different local organizations, SMMC, WYC, Sector Health, Ambulance and the MHF staff.
Mr. Van Leeuwen and Mr. van de Moosdijk also visited the different health care facilities on St. Maarten and paid a courtesy visit to the commissioner of health Mr. Hyacinth Richardson on Wednesday September 23, 2009. The commissioner was informed of the course and the plans for future cooperation between MHF and Arkin. A multi annual plan is being developed to bring more education and training programs to St. Maarten as well as support from Master students to do research and possible staff exchange programs. The main focus of the cooperation agreement will be, to train Health Care Workers to bring information about mental problems to the communities and to enhance prevention methods.