1. Provide psychological first aid, emotional support and mental health evaluation of 1,000 people directly affected by the flooding and landslide in a month.a. Recruit and provide PFA training to 10 disaster mental health team members and 10 local community members (teachers, FCHV, health professionals and traditional healers).
b. Deploy 10 PFA trained providers under a leadership of a psychologist to one of the most affected sites (Balkhu, Kathmandu and Panauti, Kavre).
c. Provide individual evaluation and emotional support to the directly impacted people
d. Provide group counseling to the affected people and organize 2 community mental health awareness events
e. Assess the mental health needs of the affected people
2. Provide individual mental health counseling to 300 people with significant psychological distress or mental health difficulties within 3 months.
a. Counseling from an experienced counselors or psychologists through telephone or video
b. Consultation and supervision of the counselors by the team of psychiatrists and clinical psychologists
c. Referral of the severe cases to the nearest health facility with the psychiatric services
3. Provide mental health support to 1,000 people indirectly impacted by the natural disaster through disaster mental health hotline within 3 months.
a. Establishing a disaster mental health hotline which will be managed by the trained professionals under the supervision of the consultants.
b. The overall project to be managed by an experienced psychologist under the supervision of the NIOMH director.
Potential challenges: Time sensitivity, proper access to the affected families in remote areas, political interest of the local community leaders, and stigma of mental health care are the major challenges.
Overcoming the challenges: Many leaders of the organization have more than 12 years of experience of implementing community based health interventions in Nepal which will be instrumental in addressing the challenges we might face to implement the proposed project. NIOMH and the partner organization, HFN, have more than 100 active volunteers and have a dedicated team of mental health experts to address the stigma and the cultural sensitivity related to trauma victims.
Evaluation: The objectives have the measurable items on itself and will be the major evaluation measures.
