Naju hospital to host symposium on youth behavioral addiction

The National Naju Hospital will hold a symposium on youth behavioral addiction on Nov. 5, bringing together clinicians, police and gambling-treatment specialists to discuss early detection and recovery-based responses to gambling and internet addiction among young people.

The event, titled "Scientific Understanding of Youth Behavioral Addiction and Recovery-Centered Response Strategies," will begin at 2 p.m. at the National Gwangju Science Museum's Imagination Hall. About 120 practitioners from youth-addiction agencies and mental health professionals are expected to attend. The hospital organized the forum for its 70th anniversary, citing its role over those decades in promoting mental health in the region and what it described as a public medical institution's responsibility for the healthy growth of the next generation.

In the first session, Yoon Hyun-joo, who heads the hospital's BARO Clinic, will share findings from a 2025 survey of behavioral addiction among teenagers in the Gwangju and South Jeolla regions. The clinic, whose name stands for Behavioral Addictions Recovery Objective, opened in September 2024 to treat and rehabilitate patients with behavioral addictions.

Yang Chan-mo, a professor of psychiatry at Wonkwang University Hospital, will then explain how addiction affects the adolescent brain and set out treatment approaches based on that neuroscience.

The final session turns to frontline intervention, with Kim Jang-hwan, a police officer in the South Jeolla Provincial Police Agency's crime prevention response division, discussing delinquency linked to youth addiction and how to head it off. Kim Young-gon, a team leader at the Gwangju-South Jeolla Gambling Prevention and Treatment Center, will present community-based work on gambling problems and recovery support.

Shi Young-hwa, the hospital's director, will chair a discussion and question-and-answer session on cooperation among relevant agencies, focused on preemptive responses and recovery.

Shi said he hopes the meeting of theory and field experience will serve as priming water for young people's recovery. "We will continue to work closely with the local community to build a dense integrated support network so that children can escape addiction and grow into confident members of society," he said.