Developing Indigenous PsyCorps Support Team in Sri Lanka

We are currently in the process of planning our return to Sri Lanka to complete our mission of setting up and training Sri Lanka’s first culturally indigenous PsyCorps Psychological Support Team. This will assist that country in their continued relief and reconstruction efforts following the tsunami of December 2004.  As many of you are aware, there has existed an emerging, long-term effort in dealing with the psychosocial effects of death, injury, grief and loss that followed the tsunami disaster.  These effects have persisted in the days, weeks and months following the tsunami, after the initial stabilization of medical and social relief efforts were in place, and after the media attention tapered off.

Unfortunately, the provision of psychological first aid has varied in its organization and effectiveness from region to region, often being reactive rather than proactive. We have been in close communication with Sri Lanka, and most caregivers involved in the post-tsunami reconstruction effort are physically and emotionally overwhelmed.

Psychological first aid and care for caregivers must be culturally sensitive to be the most effective. We realize that Western psychology must be locally interpreted to be relevant or appropriate in many regions of the world. While other relief organizations have provided outside mental health service to survivors and caregivers, it has been PsyCorps. mission all along to help the region create and develop its own Psychological Support Teams, with the belief that local people from this region are the most effective providers of psychological first aid services and psychological support within their own culture.

Our objective is for these psychological support teams to be set in place in this region; they are to be organized, prepared and able to maintain a presence to address the increasing psychological issues and posttraumatic problems stemming from the tsunami disaster relief and reconstruction work.  We are currently raising support for this crucial completion of the Sri Lanka PsyCorps Psychological Support Team, which will serve as a model for international replication in this geographic area.

With your help, we can complete this mission of establishing our first international Psychological Support Team. Through your generosity, you are helping to restore hope in the lives of those impacted by the tsunami disaster. Thank you for being part of the healing process.

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