Psycho-social component in disaster management training

Former faculty at NIMHANS Dr Sanjeev Kumar has underscored the need for psycho-social care in disaster management training at the grass-roots level.

Dr Kumar, currently assistant professor at KMC-Manipal, said such training should be given to anganwadi and gram panchayat workers and those directly connected with the locals.

They are crucial to imparting post-disaster psycho-social care. A severe manpower shortage prevails across all aspects of disaster mitigation, especially handling psycho-social care, he said.

Dr Kumar spoke to DH on the sidelines of a day-long workshop on 'Psycho-Social Care in Disaster Management' in which volunteers, officials and members of civil defence, home guards, Red Cross society, fire and emergency, defence, Rapid Action Force, education department, medical professionals and college students participated.

Dr Kumar emphasised the need to sensitise people though such sensitisation is happening only at the government level. The pace at which training is given and information trickles down to the grass-roots level should also be greater, he felt.

As the nodal agency, NIMHANS has come up with a module for disaster management and psycho-social care. It included psychological care at the community level for children, adults, individual families and women, and stress management.

Medical representatives at the session said psychological care was lacking in India, while it was given greater emphasis in foreign countries.

Participating in the event, Shalini Rajneesh, principal secretary, Education Department (Primary and Secondary), said there was a need to make children aware about disaster management and support in their early age itself.

With this objective, the department has suggested to the government on creating Red Cross Clubs in all schools. Shalini said the discussions in this regard are going on.

(From left) KSDMA official Dr G Viswanath; principal secretary, Department of Primary and Higher Primary Education, Dr Shalini Rajneesh; and former faculty at NIMHANS, Dr Sanjeev Kumar.