Psycho-social intervention at welfare centres

Nimal Wijesinghe

A psycho-social Intervention and Guidance Service has been initiated in IDP welfare villages in Vavuniya for displaced students and education employees including teachers.

The main objective of this program is to assist them to gain mental health and create the necessary background for them to revive their educational and vocational activities.

The program is launched on the instructions of President Mahinda Rajapaksa and supervised by Education Minister Susil Premajayantha and the Director of the Psycho-social intervention and guidance Department of the Education Ministry K.P.N. Premasiri.

He will seek the assistance of Provincial psycho-social resource centre managers, in-service advisers and other relevant cadres attached to the department, islandwide in implementing this program.

Under the first phase, a program to revive the mental health and the paralysed educational sphere a specially designed psycho-social intervention and guidance service will be launched in the Kadiragamer, Arunachalam, Ananda Koomaraswamy Ramanathan and the zone No. 05 welfare villages where 53,304 students and 2,434 teachers, education directors and teacher instructors are staying.

Premasiri told Daily News that on a fact finding mission, a team of selected officials headed by him on the instructions of the Education Minister were in Vavuniya for one week last May touring the welfare camps, to collect first hand information about the problems and difficulties faced by the students and other education employees, residing in them and a detailed report has been submitted to the Minister.

The necessity to open five educiaotn coordinating offices under a Director for each unit, establishment of five psycho-social intervention and guidance centres in the welfare zones and the establishment of separate educational zones within the camps and a number of other proposals have been submitted by the fact finding mission to be implemented.

Laxman Dikkumbura a member of the steering panel of officials of the "Vavuniya Welfare centres Psycho-social programme", Deputy Director of North Central Provincial Education Department and also the Manager of Provincial Resource centre said that a batch of nearly 100 psycho-social intervention and guidance officials would proceed to Vavuniya next week to implement this program.