Neighbours Ready to Help Neighbours Cope

Next Tuesday, 18 January, the first "Neighbours Helping Neighbours Community-based Support Group" will meet, beginning a new focus on helping Cayman heal from the trauma of Hurricane Ivan.

Stress crisis

For several months public health nurses and volunteers at the Disaster Assistance Centres have been gathering information on stress levels in the community. When asked to rate the stress level in their homes, half of the intakes to the DACs reported a rate of six or above with one quarter reporting in the critical range of eight to 10, thus indicating an urgent need for help.

In response to this stress crisis, the Ministry for Health with the assistance of local counselor Dr. Karen Dunbar, has formed the "Neighbours Helping Neighbours Community-based Support Group." In mid-December, over 30 volunteers from a cross-section of the community including teachers, social workers, retired individuals and church workers donated their time to be trained as peer counselors.

"The Ministry of Health thanks the individuals who attended the 16-hour weekend seminar and will be assisting us in facilitating the community support groups," said Deputy Permanent Secretary Diane Montoya.

Focus on vulnerable

"Our focus is now on helping the more vulnerable individuals in the community such as the elderly and young people, said Mrs. Montoya. "At the end of our training course we found that to our delight many individuals wanted to begin their own peer support groups at their church or other places. The ministry will provide back up support to these groups including trained facilitators and materials (paid by the group) and will help screen applicants," explained Mrs. Montoya.

Plans exist for at least three Community-Based Peer Support Groups to operate in every district. Each group will consist of 15 residents and two trained peer counselors and will be organized over a six week period. Another training session for peer counselors is slated for February 2005 and will be attended by volunteers who were not able to attend the first training course.

Mrs. Montoya explained that once over-stressed individuals are identified by DAC workers and public health staff in the district clinics they are interviewed by community health officers. This is to determine whether a support group is appropriate or if they should be referred for individual counselling through mental health services.

"Our community health workers go directly into homes to talk with people and assess their needs. They can determine if an intervention program such as Neighbours Helping Neighbours where individuals work in small groups to problem solve, learn stress management skills and get advice is appropriate. If the workers identify signs of more serious issues such as depression they may recommend the individual receives one-on-one help from a psychiatrist," said Ms. Montoya.

Training for HOD's, line staff

A programme of training is also being developed by the Ministry of Health to assist government workers such as heads of departments and front-line staff; namely police, teachers, counsellors and accident & emergency doctors.

The Centre for Addictions and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto, Canada, contacted Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Health Andrea Bryan late last year offering their assistance in training people in the key aspects of critical incident stress debriefing (CISD). Slated to arrive in early February, the CAMH educators will host half day workshops for front-line staff and also help facilitate the new Neighbours to Neighbours peer counselor training session.

The Ministry of Health intends for the CAMH educators to demonstrate strategies and techniques that Heads of Department can utilize in addressing trauma related symptoms in their staff.

"Since it has been over four months since the hurricane we recognize that people may be feeling different now than then. The behaviors we see now are different and we expect the CAMH educators along with Dr. Dunbar to give guidelines on things to expect and techniques to deal with our present situation," said Mrs. Montoya.

If you are interested in attending the Neighbours Helping Neighbours programme you are asked to contact public health services at the Cayman Islands Hospital at 949-8600 or visit a district health centre to pick up an application form.