Capacity Building: Trajectory in Asia and Community Preparation & Planning for Disaster Response with EMDR Therapy in Parts of Asia

Summary: 

Mental health, though considered essential, takes a back seat at the time of disaster response in parts of Asia. The awareness and acceptance of psycho-social interventions on the impact of catastrophes on mental health is lacking not only among the policy maker but also among general population. So, the main question is how and where to begin? Thus, foremost important is acceptance by the community leaders and authorities for planning the community intervention with EMDR Therapy as a disaster response.

In this presentation, we share the experience of large scale EMDR Therapy intervention of planning, commencing, observations, feedback, research, illustrations and local challenges. The interventions were from India, Sri Lanka, and Nepal after the manmade and natural disasters. These interventions were possible by the support of NGOs, Universities and local level educational institutions and to some extent by local World Health Organization from Nepal. The teamwork of EMDR Association volunteers, the support from Trauma Recovery/HAP, and Dr. Ignacio Jarero were the key drivers of the humanitarian projects which ended in several trainings for the local level capacity building and outreach to trauma victims.

Learning Objectives:

1. Participants will learn the importance of understanding the community based needs and activities related to planning, approval and acceptance of large scale EMDR Therapy interventions by community and authorities.
2. Participants will understand the community preparations, training and capacity building of the local mental health professionals.
3. Participants will understand team building and preparatory training of volunteers for the EMDR methods (EMDR specific group, recent event protocols and individual protocols, research and data collections).