Calls for counselling up amid pandemic

There has been an increase in the number of counselling calls being made to the Empower Pacific team during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This was revealed by the Labasa branch team leader and general counsellor, Shobana Indal. Ms Indal said the high number of calls was triggered by the current COVID-19 containment and restrictions put in place across the country. She said people’s daily routines were affected and they required counselling sessions to provide them with some source of inspiration and hope.

“We get calls from people whose employment has been affected, people in quarantine or in containment zones,” she said.

People from random age groups were calling and children, she said, were the most affected because they had never experienced such situations before.

Ms Indal said parents played an important role in ensuring that their children were safe, comfortable and at ease within their environment.

“Parents need to be aware of what activities their child was engaged in since social media, television programs and other internet websites had a lot of harmful content,” she said.

“Parents need to allocate quality time to spend with their children as they may not be able to fully understand all COVID-related information.”

When someone called requiring counselling advise, the call was directed to the head office in Lautoka, where the advice was given from since the Labasa office has suspended all physical counselling sessions, in light of the pandemic.

The toll-free number available for the 24-hour counselling sessions are: 2937141 and 7765626 (Lautoka office) and 7760017 (Labasa office).