My work

Handing over curriculum and books to Sri Jayawardenapura
University

Mental Health Training

Organizational Development for Shanthiham

I have had requests to write more about my work. I find it difficult due to the highly sensitive nature of the work and the usual limits of confidentiality. However, I will try to give some generalities. Many jobs or tasks arose based on my initial assessment of the organization and the needs of the community/district/province. My work was and is not assigned, but rather based on this assessment and determining where my skill set can be used to fill in some of the gaps.

Job One: Train the nine member trauma team in group therapy, build their clinical skills, and develop their capacity to work with victims of torture, trauma and ex-combatants.

Job Two: Train a six member community team in group therapy, build their clinical skills to work with families of the "disappeared", war widows, the displaced, and the mentally ill.

Job Three: Training of counselling staff has been ad hoc (usually provided by some well meaning INGO or NGO providing a counselling workshop on the weekend for the staff) which is not helpful to assist the counsellors to actually obtain some professional certification, so I am helping to build an education plan for all community and hospital therapists in order, that over time, they can reach professional registration status.

Job Four: Work with the Ministry of Mental Health and secure, under the Mental Health Policy of Sri Lanka, a Community Resource Centre (CRC) status for the community centre that I work for and with. It is the oldest and most reputable community therapy centre in Jaffna but there is much work to be done in terms of professionalizing staff, ensuring documentation, IT training and proving a broad range of services that are necessary to meet the criteria to receive provincial status as a CRC .

Job Five: In the Northern Province of Sri Lanka, train people working in social work positions (only two with formal social work training) to build their social work capacity. We are currently seeking approval of the Ministry of Health to fund and support leave for training of these social workers.

Job Six: Develop the capacity of the organization to modernize and build their training capacity in order to be self sufficient as NGO and INGO funding is becoming scarce.

Job Seven: Help meet with potential funders such as US Aid, AusAid, Asia Foundation, determine their funding parameters, write proposals for funding, and build capacity of existing staff in this regard.

Job Eight: build relationships with the University of Jaffna to partnership for training and research

Job Nine: to develop at least two people in the region capable of providing supervision to those working in social work positions.

Job Ten: As there are so few social workers in the country, I have been working on developing a post diploma program for social work. This has entailed a global comparison of social work trainings and development of a proposal and curriculum outline to the University Grants Commission for approval of such a course. It is a two year program offered to people with a social science degree to graduate with an equivalent of a BSW and then go on to do an additional year , if desired to receive MSW. We just received word last week that the University Grants Commission has accepted our proposal, so this is quite thrilling. Much work remains to fully flesh out the curriculum before it can be offered for the first time. I am hoping to take the last two months of my placement to work on this full time and have identified additional staff to assist with this project.

I have secured funding for a translator and am taking Tamil lessons 3 times a week in order to better build relationships and to enhance my ability to work with various staff members. My role is not so much to do the tasks myself, but to build the capacity of those around me in the organizations, so that when I leave, the change can be sustained.

I love my work here. It is frustrating because the wheels of bureaucracy are absolutely clogged by hierarchy, corruption and male patriarchy. It is terrifying as there is so much to do, so little time to do it in, so little resources to do it with and it seems the more you know, the more you know you don't know.

It is also rewarding to see the skills of the therapists emerge, to see the organization begin to see the rationale for change and it is thrilling to build relationships with people from Sri Lanka and to begin to understand the cultural similarities and differences and to appreciate them.

I am, however, experiencing some crushing homesickness that is making me count the days until I am home. I miss my children and grandchildren, my mom and my siblings, my nieces and my nephews. I miss my friends ... yet I have started something that I will see finished and, that, I want to finish.