Rebuilding Community Mental Health Resilience after a Natural Disaster when there are no services.
Our agency develops mental health community outreach approaches and services in the context of disaster that can support and rebuild community resilience.
A propos de vous
A propos de vous
A propos de votre organisation
Nom
The Family Centre
Site Web
Pays
Nouvelle Zélande, WGN
Pays dans lesquels ce projet crée un impact social
Samoa, AT
Votre organisation est-elle une
organisation à but non lucratif
Depuis combien de temps votre organisation opère-t-elle ?
Plus 5 années
Votre organisation a-t-elle reçu des récompenses ou des prix ? Si oui, indiquez-nous lesquels.
We have been honoured by the
Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy for Distinguished Contirbutions to Family Therapy (1995)
American Family Therapy Academy for distinguised contribution to Social Justice (2007)
World Bank Development Marketplace Competition Winners 2009. Innovation: Indigenous Samoan Housing as a Soultion to Climate Change.
Références - Veuillez fournir deux références, accompagnées chacune d'une explication de deux lignes, d'une adresse e-mail et d'un numéro de téléphone
Referee 1: Archbishop Alapati Mataeliga, Archdiocese of Samoa - Apia. HIs Grace the Archbishop of Samoa - Apia is the leader of the Catholic community in Samoa. This organisation has been our partner working with us after the Tsunami 2009 to deliver a pastoral visitations programme. His Grace can be contacted via Email: archbishop-sjb@lesamoa.net. Phone: +685 30074 (Assistant: Ms Tina Benish.)
Referee 2: Ms Mena Nelson, Principal Disaster Management Officer, Disaster Management Office - Samoa. Ms Nelson was a major contact during the post disaster phase. She and her officers provided logistical and other supports to our pastoral response team. We have maintained a positive relationship since that time. Phone: +685 7700661.
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Innovation
Sélectionnez la phase qui s'applique le mieux à votre solution
Stabilité (le projet a dépassé les premières étapes et obtient de bons résultats)
Depuis combien de temps le projet existe-t-il ?
En place depuis plus de 5 ans
Le besoin : quel problème tentez-vous de résoudre ?
When a natural disaster strikes people lose family members, their homes, patterns of life, livelihoods and very often their state of wellbeing and their mental health is often negatively impacted for months or longer. Psychological resilience for both the young and the elderly is deeply rocked by the impacts of a disaster. In smaller developing nations across the Pacific mental health services are often the smallest sector within health systems. There is no full time psychiatrist to service the nation of nearly 200,000 people. The government budget currently affords a part time psychiatrist specialist from Australia. When the Tsunmai 2009 struck - there were no community based services to meet increased mental health needs caused by the disaster.
La solution: quelle solution proposez-vous ? Soyez précis !
The solution was to rebuild the resilience of the affected populations through a community outreach programme. Without this we believed that the disaster impacts would continue for another generation. We called on our friends to come and help with informing and designing the intervention.
Leadership was held firmly by our Samoan Coordinator, with support from the home agency the Family Centre. The Family Centre drew on our existing partners in Samoa and we worked together to build capacity by training a 'community outreach team'. We called in the best psychologists and adocescent mental health psychiatrists familiar with Samoan cultural norms, who were accountable to Samoan leadership from our agency. We developed a Childrens programme which we took through the affected villages with the support of local schools. Teams visited every family impacted by the tsunami over 6 weeks in 2009 and recently in 2011. We documented visits & indicators of their well-being.
Le système : décrivez un exemple spécifique montrant de quelle façon votre initiative fonctionne ; indiquez vos principales activités.
In our experience when a crisis happens, whether its a death in the family or a Tsunami that has taken everything that formed the familiar, its vital to the future resilience,wellbeing and recovery of the imapacted populations that they receive some comforting , pastoral care and even have some external witnesses to their losses / grief.
We drew on Samoan cultural practices and the best social science and therapeutic knowedge we could and developed a method for the basis of our community outreach programme. A team of 20 'pastoral workers' from the Catholic Archdiocese of Samoa including others from NZ and the USA was formed. Non-Samoan mental health specialists were attached to each of the Samoan teams. Their role was to support the Samoan teams. The Principal Team leader (Co-ordinator of the Pacific Section of Family Centre) provided supervision and de-briefs. The teams worked with village leaders in each location identifying impacted families. Families were visited, preliminary assessments of wellbeing were carried out. Those in need of intensive follow up were referred to team specialists.
Children (under 10 years) and Elders needed intensive follow up. We spent more time with Elders. We developed with our Child and adolescent psychiatrist specialist a format of 'Childrens Camps'. Camps aimed to reduce post disaster stress levels so children could regain concentration and reduce their fears. Activites had to be fun and include a meal. Nearly 1300 Children participated. We have just carried out follow up visitations to over 500 households.
Le marché : qui sont vos collègues et vos concurrents ? Identifiez les autres personnes qui travaillent à répondre au même besoin et indiquez ce qui vous différencie d'elles. Comment ces concurrents pourraient-ils influencer votre réussite ou votre croissance ?
At the time there were others involved in 'Psycho-social responses' but these were on an individual less collaborative basis. That proved unsustainable given the scale of need and lack of local funding.
We were able to sustain our own mental health response strategy because of a large network of supporters, including faithbased organisations, both in Samoa and internationally. Mental Health is often overlooked and under resourced post disaster but consequences are connected to physical health impacts: e.g increased blood pressure, internalised stresses = early death. We connected these to Livelihood and economic health and inter-generational health issues. Children are survivors too. In our experience there a few competitors in our region. We continue to work in this area.
This Entry is about (Issues)
Impact social
Création de l'organisation : nous voulons tout savoir sur votre déclic. Expliquez-nous oú et quand les fondateurs se sont rendu compte que cette solution possédait un véritable potentiel pour changer le monde.
Across the Oceanic environment of the Pacific we have island nations struggling against rising sea levels, Christchurch city in New Zealand experiencing on-going earthquakes and climate change causing impacts on populations' physical, cultural, spiritual, economic, mental and psychological health. When everything that connects us as humans to our place and sense of belonging and our material world is destroyed specialised health attention is needed. We arrived into Samoa, from New Zealand a day after the tsunami with with doctors and emergency para-medics. When we took them to the National Hospital to join the emergency medical teams the Chief of Clinical Services, who knew the background of the Family Centre asked for help, "we have no psych-mental health services to help people. Please do something." Our solution was to develop a community outreach partnership between local and international specialists to address mental health impacts of the disaster.
Décrivez le but de votre initiative, en insistant sur les résultats que vous souhaitez obtenir
Rebuilding mental health resilience following a disaster/crisis through a community outreach programme as a key response to a natural disaster.
Jusqu'à ce jour, quels résultats a obtenu votre projet ?
Our agency leaders were called in by the New Zealand Social Policy and Welfare agency to do similar work in New Zealand. Christchurch city was hit in September 2010 by a 7.1 magnitude earthquake killing 182 people. The Samoan experience went onto impact the work with Christchurch emergency, health, education, government and non-government and community workers.
Two years later we are still the only team (we would say in the Pacific region) to have developed a specific response to the mental health impacts of disasters and trialed it so extensively. In Samoa we have gathered information on the general health and wellbeing of each of the famiiies impacted by the tsunami. No other agencies have gathered this level of information.
In the meantime we have been very heartened to see the high levels of recovery and can specifically identify specific programmes that are needed for example in the health, economic development, housing or water policy areas.
Quelles sont vos prévisions en termes d'impact au cours des cinq prochaines années ?
Across the Pacific region impact may include: drawing on what we have learned and work with specific Ministries of government, the national Churches or local village leadership to shape policy and/or projects that will improve future outcomes for Children, young people and their leadership groups, and Elders.
The main projected impact? To strengthen regional resilience in health, social, cultural, economic and environment sectors.
Les meilleures propositions possèdent un programme solide détaillant leurs prévisions pour atteindre et suivre leurs objectifs de croissance. Identifiez vos objectifs à 6 mois pour accroître vos résultats
Working with Governments of Samoa & New Zealand on social & economic policy directions indicated by our review findings
Définissez les trois tâches principales à accomplir pour atteindre ces objectifs à six mois
Tâche 1
Carry out analysis of the Health & Livelihood aspects of the review data collected from the households interviewed
Tâche 2
Identify social & economic outcomes of disaster
Tâche 3
Publish and disseminate the report and our review findings with our partner(s) in Samoa
Et maintenant, voyez les choses en plus grand ! Identifiez vos objectifs à 12 mois
Working across the Region on developing culturally based mental health responses in times of disaster and crisis.
Définissez les trois tâches principales à accomplir pour atteindre vos objectifs à 12 mois
Tâche 1
Identify health and other policy outcomes
Tâche 2
Working with Government of Samoa on social & economic policy outcomes of review
Tâche 3
Working with Government of New Zealand on health, economic and other development impacts of review outcomes
Viabilité
Quels sont vos différents partenariats ?
Our Samoan partnerships contribute 'in kind' human resources and skills rather than financing. Our strongest and most consistent partnership in Samoa is with the Catholic Archdiocese of Samoa - Apia. They support the building of capacity of their pastoral workers so that in the event of any future disasters they can respond locally.
Samoan Government Social Policy Ministries are newer partners but they are critical to the success of social and economic resilience. These Ministries are supportive but they are not financing us. We are building sensitive and transparent relationships.
Actuellement, votre projet cible-t-il d'autres populations, lieux ou marchés spécifiques ? Si oui, lesquels et pourquoi ?
Based on our own experience our targeted populations are the indigenous populations in our region of the Pacific. Building Regional Resilience will draw upon local peoples, indigenous cultural knowlegdes , environment and practices as the major resources.
Quel environnement et quels facteurs organisationnels internes font la réussite de votre projet ?
Operating environment: The partners in this innovation share values inclusive of social justice and compassion so Leaders and workers develop responses to crisis.
Partnerships across Oceanic 'borders'- relationships between New Zealand and Samoa are historic as New Zealand was a former colonial power. Staff in the Pacific Section are Samoans connected to their places of belonging, so relationships are built over time. The Family Centre as an organisation is innovative with cultural sections that operate autonomously but interdependently. These sections are empowered to set their work priorities in relationship with one another. These relationships are underpinned by accountability to one another and a shared set of social justice values.
Expliquez plus en détails les besoins et les offres indiqués ci-dessus ou proposez un type d'aide non mentionné dans la liste
Our main needs are for forms of investment or other innovative ideas about generating ways to sustain this work financially - there must be others who have figured this out?
 | il y a 65 semaines Loudeen Parsons updated this Competition Entry. |
| il y a 65 semaines Loudeen Parsons updated this Competition Entry. |
| il y a 66 semaines Loudeen Parsons updated this Competition Entry. |
| il y a 66 semaines Loudeen Parsons submitted this idea. |