CREATING A TEAM OF MENTAL HEALTH VOLUNTEERS IN THE COMMUNITY:
PILOT PROJECT OF THE PSYCHIATRY DEPARTMENT
Objectives:
Creating a team of Mental Health Volunteers among teachers and senior students of a College who will act as a liaison between the student population of Junior college and mental heath professionals who will
- Understand Mental Health in general and application in the adolescents age group
- Learn to identify how and why Mental Health is preserved (primary prevention) and how it can get disturbed
- Learn common issues /disturbances in the mental health & hygiene of adolescents
- Understand the need and role of Mental Health volunteers for early detection of Mental Health issues
- Create a ‘cell’ to help adolescent for better quality life and future
- Learn to work as a TEAM and to help adolescents in distress
Results
- All 180 teachers were exposed to common issues of mental health amongst adolescents and were sensitized to the need for early detection and management
- More than 70 volunteers were sensitized and trained through a series of interactive sessions to take up their role as leaders in the field of mental health in the college.
- Communication of mental health volunteers in the local language developed a sense of closeness and of being understood to enable open sharing of distress.
‘Reaching to the unreached’ became possible with the help of TEAM; medical professionals, community mental health volunteers, paramedicals and stakeholders of society
Background of the project:
This current year’s theme of World Mental Health day is ‘Mental Health of YOUTH in the changing world’. The Department of Psychiatry perceived the need of raising a team of Volunteers to attend to the primary needs of Mental Health in the community. Authority of Sonopant Dandekar Shikshan Mandli’s college shown a willingness to participate in programme. College has more than 10,000 students on the campus in various streams includes UG, PG and Ph.D. Project started with the dual purpose: One, to raise awareness of the importance of Mental Health and Hygiene in the college going students, and two, to initiate a pilot project to train the student volunteers in primary prevention of mental health. Since the campus has a huge number of students, reaching to this vast number is only possible with the help of volunteers from the students and their mentors from the faculty. Entire college faculty is also involved for this project as a faculty development program. Program was run into 2 stages; first was orientation and awareness program for faculty and second was modules of workshop for training the trainers in mental health issues.
Objectives of the workshop:
Creating a team of Mental Health Volunteers among teachers and senior students of a College who will act as a liaison between the student population of Junior college and mental heath professionals who will
- Understand Mental Health in general and application in the adolescents age group
- Learn to identify how and why Mental Health is preserved (primary prevention) and how it can get disturbed
- Learn common issues /disturbances in the mental health & hygiene of adolescents
- Understand the need and role of Mental Health volunteers for early detection of Mental Health issues
- Create a ‘cell’ to help adolescent for better quality life and future
- Learn to work as a TEAM and to help adolescents in distress
Methodology followed:
- Focused discussion with faculty: 180 teachers from all the courses have attended the discussion session. The session began in a very innovative way where we attempted to project the intricacies of how we receive information, process it and how our altered perception is often responsible for the derangement of our Mental Health. This was followed with adequate stimulation with some caselets depicting different problems of adolescents ranging from simple to complex. Through discussion various issues of adolescence were depicted. Many actively participated and contributed very good insight and appreciation of the issues. Their sensitivities were touched and they shared their identification very beautifully. After sufficient sensitisation and discussion on all the cases, the basic material on Mental Health Programme was shared with them which was but a mere summarization of the issues discussed.
- Training Programme for Mental Health Volunteers: this activity was divided into 4 modules; each having dedicated objectives to reach the integrated aspect of Mental Health. 77 students from varied background enrolled themselves with an interest and motive of ‘helping each other’ to deal with issues related to Mental health. Role of teachers and mentors was designed where they would be helping the needy. All the sessions were planned to be interactive and Psychiatry students were actively involved in each module as a part of their training.
Results
- All 180 teachers were exposed to common issues of mental health amongst adolescents and were sensitized to the need for early detection and management
- More than 70 volunteers were sensitized and trained through a series of interactive sessions to take up their role as leaders in the field of mental health in the college.
- Communication of mental health volunteers in the local language developed a sense of closeness and of being understood to enable open sharing of distress.
‘Reaching to the unreached’ became possible with the help of TEAM; medical professionals, community mental health volunteers, paramedicals and stakeholders of society
