Supporting mental wellness
PRIOR to the novel coronavirus pandemic, it was accepted that our pool of mental health resources was, at best, inadequate. However, the anxiety and stress that accompanied the infectious disease will now require the implementation of innovative strategies in order for resources to catch up with the galloping demand for support.
Teletherapy has expanded the reach of service providers, but it is still not enough.
Two charities — Choose Life International (CLI) and Love Changes Lives (LCL) — now stand at the ready with high-impact programmes that have the potential to bolster community care in a way that could assist people who are facing mental health challenges. Both organisations, which recently passed the Jamaica Social Stock Exchange’s (JSSE) rigorous screening process and have been selected for the its fund-raising platform, have been delivering tailored psychological and counselling services for more than 15 years combined.
While their programmes are more accurately described as behavioural modification interventions (psychosocial programmes) as opposed to mental health interventions, specifically developed and targeted programmes of this nature have been proven to curb the proliferation of anti-social behaviours and alter the severity of poor mental health manifestations, a press release has said.
“Although the reported rise in the need for mental health services may differ according to the source, the consensus is that the request for support has grown. From all indications, the need for psychosocial services will supersede available resources post-COVID,” JSSE Manager Nora Blake is quoted as saying in the release.
“Choose Life International and Love Changes Lives bring significant experience in resocialisation and personal transformation to the table through their counselling and psychology programmes. Their proposed methodologies tackle the problem at its source and show an appreciation of the scale of the challenge,” Blake asserted.
Though both organisations are faith-based, they offer a slate of empirically driven services that have already yielded success among underserved populations and communities.
Furthermore, both are also able to deliver their programme within the COVID-19-related protocols. The release said this is because the four-year-old LCL activity was designed as a digital-first initiative that only required minor adjustments to manage the COVID realities while CLI made an early pivot, allowing it to manage the current situation through hybrid or online delivery of its services.
Love Changes Lives
With the goal of reducing anti-social behaviour among students, the LCL initiative focuses on the personal transformation journeys of school-aged children, instilling in them important values so that over time they see the awesome gifts that they are to the world.
Recognising the influence of the environment on the individual, it also engages with a broad range of stakeholders including students, parents, administration, counsellors, and others to support the child’s holistic development. Its pro-social approach counters the destructive anti-social tendencies that can take hold within this period of development, derailing students’ plans and disrupting the ability of the schools to function optimally, the release said.
Although it is not defined as a religious programme, the inclusion of spiritual development is one of LCL’s key differentiators among initiatives of this nature. Also, its partnership with Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts facilitates the creation of culturally relevant, creative content that commands the attention of students, which is another of its noteworthy features.
Choose Life International
The Shalom Project developed by Choose Life International has a slightly broader scope than LCL’s initiative. It is focused on community transformation through the organisation’s corps of ambassadors.
CLI ambassadors are competent and motivated volunteers who live and operate in targeted communities. Under this initiative, they are trained in the organisation’s flagship suicide-prevention programme, trauma intervention, conflict resolution and the acclaimed art and science of happiness courses. All of this is done to develop a corps equipped with the skills needed to effect change from the ground up.
The project is structured to grow organically as the ambassadors are encouraged to be agents of change who will in turn train others in the community to continue the work, the release said.
Blake advised that the sustainability and scalability baked into both programmes are attributes the social market uses as identifiers of future success, hence their selection.
“Jamaica will be better served by having both programmes fully funded and operational over the long term. For, both the Choose Life International and Love Changes Lives teams have managed to turn cases of trauma, abuse, and rape into stories of forgiveness, resilience, and hope. They offer the help that we need. We hope that Jamaica will support them” said the JSSE manager.
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