Conference seeks to find solutions to address behavioural health, trauma

Attendees at a behavioural health and trauma conference were on Monday urged to approach mental illness from a place of culture, and to use the knowledge gathered to ensure that policy measures are put in place to properly address the issue.

Monday marked day one of the three-day ‘International Behavioural Health and Trauma Conference: creating a space for our minds.’ It is being held under the theme, “Our journey into wellness.”

Presenting on addressing trauma and community mobilisation for the promotion of mental health wellness in schools, homes, churches and communities, was United States psychologist Dr Ifetayo Ojelade.

In what proved to be an interactive session, Dr Ojelade engaged the audience of largely healthcare providers, social workers and psychologists, and challenged them to conceptualise mental wellness in a Guyanese context, while emphasising that mental illness should not take a one-size-fits-all approach.

The room was split into groups and tasked with providing definitions of mental health from a number of domains, including, family, financial, social, psychological, political, sexual, cultural, historical and spiritual health.

“…I need to understand, “what does mental illness look like?” and the only way I can understand what mental illness looks like is that I need to know what normal looks like, and normal is based on culture. So normalness, wellness, is based on your cultural perspective,” she stated.

The activity promoted discussion among the groups on how an absence of any one those things pinpointed for wellness could affect one’s mental health.

Among the contributions of the participants during this segment as to what is needed in Guyana in terms of mental health services were housing, jobs, quicker response, treatment, resources, policy framework and a look into the root causes of the issue.

The conference is a partnership between CPIC (Caribbean People International Collective Inc) Monique’s Caring Hands Guyana, the Guyana Women’s Roundtable and the Justice and Peace Commission of the Roman Catholic Church. It is also supported by other entities, including the Ministry of Public Health and Ministry of Social Protection.

“They (CPIC Monique’s Caring Hands and the Guyana Women’s Roundtable) were planning to do a meeting like this on mental health-types of issues and the Justice and Peace Commission was separately planning its own effort to deal with trauma—how you help people to heal from trauma—and then we joined forces…,” Lawrence Lachmansingh, Chairman of the Justice and Peace Commission, explained on Monday.

Lachmansingh said that the main objectives of the conference are capacity building for those involved in areas of mental health, whether formal or informal, and building a network of support so mental health issues can be more effectively addressed. “If you notice the lineup of presenters, it’s very highly qualified people. Professors and doctors and so, so it’s almost like a–I don’t want to say university, but it is a training opportunity for people who may not have had the opportunity, especially, you know, in Guyana we have a lot of people who are trying a thing, you know, they want to help but they never really got training before,” he said.

“It’s not about strengthening our own little small corner of the operation—civil society, the church groups, the government, etc, all have to find a way of working together to support each other because these problems are now so big that no one group can effectively deal with all of them. So that is the second objective— to find ways of us working together,” he added.

According to Lachmansingh, the open conference is intended to provide a platform for conversations on how those partnerships can be developed and sustained and how people can be better reached and helped to heal in order to “reduce the overall problem of mental distress in the country.”

“What is unknown is what happens after this, that’s to be discussed during this meeting. What coalitions can we create? What partnerships can we create? And the shape and the form and the content of those partnerships depends on what happens over the three days…We want to leave this room on Wednesday with some concrete ideas on what we are going to do differently and how we’re gonna work together in a partnership…,” he stated.