Work

Many of you have asked for more detail about my work here is Sri Lanka. So here, in point form to prevent boring you, is some detail of my work in Nuwara Eliya:

• I ran developed and ran two sections of Interpersonal Skills Training to nurses and support staff. Nurses and support staff had absolutely no skill or comfort level in engaging patients. They "hid out" in the staff room and interacted with patients only when absolutely necessary. The nurse I trained to deliver this curriculum is now running the course herself in Sinhala and at the specific request of the hospital director and the nursing matron.

• I made a presentation to the provincial health ministry and received funding from the regional district to run a course for community social service workers. I graduated 13 community social services workers from a Community Case management course that specialized in mental health. These social service workers are working in social work, but have had no formal social work training. This month, the course is being offered in Tamil to the Estate Tamil nursing sisters and volunteers and will be taught by the nurse I trained.
  
• Wrote a proposal for funding and received funds from VSO and the European Commission to run two courses. I ran a course on Mental health nursing to 15 nurses who worked in psychiatry and on the medical side of the hospital. Sri Lanka has the highest suicide rate in the world and staff has had little training in mental health assessment, prevention or therapy.

• The other fund was used to bring in an Occupational Therapist working for VSO to do some training on how to run activities on a psychiatric ward. The patients, prior to the training, just sat on their beds all day long. Staff did not interact with them. The ward now has tables upon which patients can perform activities such as art work and eat their meals. They have equipment and paper for crafts, balls and badminton rackets for physical activity, musical instruments for cultural singing, horticultural tools and plants with which to develop vocational skills and for staff to build activity around. Staff learned how to run activities on a ward. I had to literally drag three support staff from a closet to get them to participate. In the end, they loved it and the patient's now benefit from the stimulation. The staff benefits as they now interact with the patients and begin to see the humanness in the patient, along with seeing improvement and change in the patient.
  
• I did one to one, family therapy and marital therapy, but instead of just delivering the therapy, I modelled it and coached the nurse and the counsellor in the mental health clinic. They learned how to apply their interpersonal skills and learned some theory and cognitive behavioural techniques. The psychiatrist is referring more and more patients to the mental health clinic, due to the increased competence derived from this training.
  
• I participated in the Mental Health Caregivers first anniversary celebration, helping them decorate and providing them with funding for a file cabinet and tables in order to evolve the organization.
  
• I coached and supported the physicians how to use their collective power to advocate for mental health patients and how to prepare documents/presentations that persuade.
  
• I went along to home visits of mental health patients and I travelled to remote locations to deliver mental health services.
  
• I encouraged language changes to reflect the importance of all members of the team. Minor staff is now being referred to as Support staff.
  
• I helped nurses address their biases regarding culture and discrimination.
  
• There are only 4 social workers in Sri Lanka and yet the Mental Health Policy of Sri Lanka is calling for over 250 social workers by 2015. I am leading a team/committee (doctors, university people, National Association of Social Workers, VSO and a social worker from India) to respond to this need. We are writing curriculum for a post-baccalaureate diploma program in social work that can ladder into a MSW in order to fast track graduates with core social work skills. In addition, I am writing a concept paper to deliver to the Senate in hopes of receiving government/ministerial consent for the state university to offer the course as soon as possible. We hope to begin admitting students in March 2013. This will be an ongoing work for me and time to continue working on this project has been built into my new job in Jaffna.
  

The goal of development work is to build capacity of the organization/persons and for the work to be sustainable. That is, that the work can be carried on, even after you leave. Much of the work I did in Nuwara Eliya is already sustainable (the community is delivering the training themselves now). I feel happy about that.

This week, I was in a Train the Trainers workshop. This course was a joint effort between the UN National Volunteering Office and VSO. This was a course to give me the skills to help develop the concept of volunteering in Sri Lanka. This is another way to build the capacity of Sri Lankan people. I will try and find a way to apply this training in some way in Jaffna.

Ok, enough. Little steps, I guess.