Mental Health Interventions by Bharatiya Stree Shakti After the Floods of2005, in Santacruz, Mumbai.

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Mental Health Interventions by Bharatiya
Stree Shakti After the Floods of 2005, in
Santacruz, Mumbai. Sub theme Social work with
victims of natural disaster  Flood
VictimsMental Health Interventions Role of
NGOs

• Manjula Nair, Counselor, BSS
• Nandini Deshmukh, Kirti College.

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Mumbai- Maharashtra-INDIA
Bay of Bengal
Arabian sea
Indian Ocean
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Bharatiya Stree Shakti

• In ancient India, women had equal status like
  men.
• To regain the equal status we need to follow
• Panchasutri (5 basic principles)
• Education - Formal and informal.
• Health- Physical and mental health. (Which
  includes social and spiritual health)
• Economic Independence. (Her right in a family
  property and family income)
• Gender equality.
• Self Esteem. (Develop the essence of humanism)

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No means of public transportation or
communication
26th. JULY 2005
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Wading through waters to head towards their
homes due to lack of transportation
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Flood spared no one.
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Submerged carsDeath in locked cars.
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Uprooted upcountry railways
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Nothing moving on the roads.
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Buses turned into bedrooms
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Trains did not run, People walked down.
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Their homes are under water
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Affected area where we worked.
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Force of water broke walls and lives
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After effectsGarbage piles, destroyed vehicles
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Parking areas full of water.
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Slum dwellers Best volunteers.
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Material help from everywhere
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Bharatiya Stree Shakti- Met them and Heard them

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Role of NGO (Bharatiya Stree Shakti) for flood
victims

• A four pronged strategy was adopted
• Mental Health Assessment and Intervention camps.
• Family visits, counseling, psychological and
  psychiatric interventions as per requirement.
• Indirect Mental Health interventions through
  community activities.
• Mental health orientation to medical personnel,
  local community based organizations, schools and
  others.

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Why Santacruz?

• Most affected area.
• Our field office located here.
• Mostly low income group and slum dwellers reside
  here.
• 23 deaths from same locality.
• Our motto is providing mental health

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Actions taken by BSS.

• Orientation and skill building of volunteers
• Community Interventions-Mental Health Camps.
• Analysis of Mental Health Status.
• Networking with family physicians.
• Working with flood affected school teachers.
• Work with flood affected school parents.

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Orientation of volunteers

• To verbalize the traumatic feelings.
• To explore particular problems faced and their
  solutions .
• To identify those at risk.
• To review the volunteers role.
• To educate about normal and acute stress
  responses.
• To explain how to cope up with stress adaptively
• To identify positive gains, if any

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Skill building of volunteers

• Give people opportunity to talk share their
  feelings!
• Should have good listening skills!
• Should not act as experts!
• Should not have own agenda!
• Power of silence should be used
• Counseling should be unidirectional- no need to
  answer all their questions!

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Community interventions

• Women volunteers noticed womenfolk are left back
  to cope with fear and apprehensions.
• Met local citizens arranged house visits -
  realized people needed help on mental plane.
• Distributed handouts behavioral symptoms to
  watch out for and the measures to deal with the
  trauma.
• Mental Health Camps

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Mental Health Camp Interventions
Emotional first aid

• Victims were scrutinized through carefully
  tailored SRQ(self regulating questionnaire)
• As per symptoms directed to Counselor,
  psychologist or psychiatrist
• Free medicines were made available through
  pharmaceutical cos.

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Analysis of Mental Health Status primary risk
and Secondary risk includes

• Phenomena observed
• PTSD- Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
• Disturbed sleep,loss of appetite, headache
• Grief, anger, irritability
• Vigilant and hyper-arousal state of mind
• Flashback or intrusive memory
• Alcohol Consumption
• Drug abuse
• Social withdrawal, loss of meaning of life

• Stress
• Unemployment
• Lack of recreational activity
• Dependency
• Vulnerability

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Responses of victims about what they thought!
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Reactions irrespective of stratum of society
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Reasons for flooding as perceived by victims
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 Orientation to medical personnel, local
community based organizations

• To get the GPs involved and sensitized towards
  Mental Health
• To prevent chronic mental health problems
• Help family physicians diagnose and heal mental
  health of disaster victims

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Schools and classrooms

• Whole night children were stranded at school.
• Children were hyper sensitive to noise,
• Complains about headache, illness, and vomiting
• Not participating in outdoor games near their
  housing colonies or in the school.
• Enthusiasm among children was perceptibly low.
• Experiencing Insomnia and bad dreams, headaches,
  stomach ache and complaints of giddiness. Became
  restless and could not pay attention.
• Absenteeism in school rose to 20 to 25 among
  girls were more common.

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Tips given to teachers and parents

• Dont worry about covering the entire planned
  curriculum.
• Let children talk about flood, if they want to.
  Allow them to repeat.
• Physical Training (P.T.) Help deal with their own
  anxieties
• Not to hide their fears from their children
• Pranayam (a slow breathing exercise), Yoga etc.
  can be useful.
• Most scared children need mental and emotional
  counselling.

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The Outcome

• Positive results of the camps started becoming
  apparent.
• The victims could verbalize their feelings
  without being judged.
• They had interpersonal contacts with social
  workers, counsellors, psychiatrists, and with
  their own people.
• This helped people develop better control over
  their minds and thought.
• Helped them cope with the disaster

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Conclusions

• This relief work is a work in progress.
• Dedicated work that involved many individuals
  from a variety of backgrounds
• Common goal of giving love and support to a group
  of people who needed to know that good mental
  health is one of the bases for all healing
  processes.
• The unconditional help that Bharatiya Stree
  Shakti got from professionals and local residents
  also helped the volunteers grow personally and
  made them more confident in order to carry out
  the follow-up work, which becomes a necessity in
  this type of a situation. .

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Thank You
www.bharatiya_streeshakti.org.in/