| Community Mental Health |
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This project represents a lager scope of TPO's work in the communities by delivering mental health interventions to disadvantaged, vulnerable people in rural Cambodia. It aims to improve quality of life of Cambodian people by improving their mental well-being, using a mix of education, information, training and therapy. The project is funded by the European Commission (EC), Interchurch Organi- zation for Development Cooperation (ICCO) and Danish Church Aid (DCA). Project objectives:
The project activities include assessment, identifying key community workers, training, capacity building, awareness raising, providing a range of interventions, treatment, monitoring and evaluation. The work is carried out by our field/community workers in collaboration with primary health care workers and community NGO partners in the target areas. Targets: This project work primarily with the following groups of people: female headed households, war widows, disabled people, children at risk, victims of domestic violence, men with alcohol problems and people living with HIV. Social Context Assessment  The first step involves an assessment of the needs within each community and begins to identify the most vulnerable groups amongst the villagers and other stakeholders. This assessment is conducted prior to any activities being undertaken in the target areas.The Participato ry Rural Appraisal (PRA) enables TPO staff to understand more about the village, introduces TPO themselves into the villages and builds relationships with the local authorities, especially each commune council. TPO core group members assess the village history, resources available, traumatic events the village have experienced, the nature of problems the village faces, and coping strategies the villagers have used.This assessment is a fundamental step for the TPO core group to formulate intervention strategies to help the villagers and to thereby identify the most vulnerable people living in each village.
Training Community Resources
These people are essential as their collaboration with TPO ensures the activities target the most vulnerable groups in each community. They are close to the individuals in each village and are able to work with the TPO team in identifying those most in need. This approach has proved to be effective and sustainable in terms of building the capacity of the local resources and empowering the community to help its own people. Psycho-Social Education
TPO Cambodia has also raised awareness on mental health and psychosocial issue through its radio programme, FM 96 MHz and FM 99.5 MHz. An extensive package of education material (e.g .posters and leaflets) is distributed for this purpose.
Self-help Group
In self-help groups, participants are introduced to a structured way in which they can express feelings, share emotions and support each other and in turn they gain experiences from other group members. Self-help groups have been accepted by TPO beneficiaries in the community especially among socially isolated individuals who can benefit from sharing experiences with each other. Self-help groups have been and will continue to be the most successful part of TPO Cambodia’s activity in the community. Self Help Groups empower vulnerable people, especially those whose human rights have been abused and/or are living with violence, to be aware and understand more about themselves, provide the opportunity for them to learn from each other and thus empower them more about their rights.
Counseling Our trained and experienced counselors provide psychological interventions through counseling sessions with individuals who suffer from psychosocial and mental health problems. This service is available for Cambodians at our TPO offices in the provinces where we work, and for both Cambodians and expatriates at the TPO Central Office in Phnom Penh (please refer to our addresses below). |
The aim of this activity is to increase the knowledge and ability of potential key resource people (village leaders, elderly, monks, traditional healers, village health volunteers, village development committee…), in each village and community. Through developing their understanding of psychosocial and mental health problems this enables them to identify, manage and prevent basic psychosocial and mental health problems, or be able to refer or know where to refer people to. 
This activity involves raising awareness of problems relating to mental health amongst the general population. Public awareness about mental health is one of the key elements in the prevention of mental health problems and promotion of mental wellbeing. Psychosocial education (defined as raising awareness about mental health and psychosocial problems) is a technique widely used by TPO Cambodia. Psychosocial education helps provide families and individuals at the community level with an understanding of psychosocial problems, stress and trauma and enables them to see the root cause of their present suffering. People learn how personal problems impact on the community and vice versa. TPO psychosocial education is conducted in the field, villages, pagodas, schools, and other public places.
TPO builds the confidence of the identified vulnerable groups through the facilitation of self-help groups. These groups may include people living with domestic violence, alcoholic problems, HIV/AIDS, handicaps due to land mines and disability; widows and children and trafficked women and children. Self-help groups (SHGs) formed and facilitated by TPO's Core Groups and their trainees (community resource people) are particularly relevant and cost-effective methods of helping individuals to find ways of solving problems and coping with stress. The number of participants in each group is ideally 10, and the number of sessions vary from 9 to 12. All Right Reserved by TPO CAMBODIA, 2009 Designed by SERVING WEB SOLUTION |