Community Mental Health Worker’s Training Programme Phase-II

The MINDS Foundation team conducted another excellent training programme at Chansad Village of Padra Taluka of Vadodara, Gujarat. Chansad also popular for Pujya Pramukhswami Maharaj’s (BAPS) birth place around the world. We invited twelve ASHA workers of Chansad cluster as participants.

The programme was delivered in a way that participants learn in-depth knowledge of the fundamentals of mental health, factors affecting mental health, symptoms of mental illness and types of mental illnesses. Also, the quality of training and language used was kept as simple as possible for laymen learning. ASHA workers are an important health workers in communities who can lead the mental health awareness and assistance programme. The CMHW programme enables these participants to work as a key point of contact in their community and provide first aid mental health care to the individuals and their families.

The training module included case studies and live interaction with actual pre-diagnosed patients. We also did role-play for good and bad counselling and good interactions of CMHW with patients were also taught to make their skills more effective and supportive.

An exclusive research project was held in partnership with The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (Global Mental Health), New York, USA for the CMHW Training Programme: “To assess two different approaches towards CMHW training through didactic learning and patient interection”.  The outcome of the research will be seen after a couple of months when the research (public health) students Ms. Rachita and Ms. Sara will prepare the first manuscript of their research. Also, a pre and post survey to assess knowledge improvement was also carried out before and after the training in order to improve the quality of training and add more from the field and learning experiences.

With this training, The MINDS Foundation put forward an appeal to potential participants, Govt. Psychiatry/Health Dept, District Administration and interested individuals working in health/education sector to join hands with MINDS and can expand such programmes in coming time.

To know more about our programmes, schedules and partnerships, please write to us at info@mindsfoundation.org or call on +919033837227

Written by: Amul Joshi, Gujarat Program Director