Lay Community Counsellor - Effectiveness of Lay Community Counselors

Effectiveness of Lay Community Counselors

Focus group evaluations conducted 8 months and 16 months after the training elicited the long-term effects of the training from core groups of community counselors, including the knowledge and attitudes, the effect of the training upon the trainees with regard to counseling skills acquisition, and the role the trainees played in the community immediately after the training and at the time of evaluation.

Several post training benefits of the training were elicited. All those who had undergone training felt that the training had a positive impact on the quality of ameliorative assistance provided by them immediately after the tsunami, when compared to the assistance given by their colleagues and peers who had not been trained.. Many felt they could cope better both personally and professionally. They felt that the training enhanced their skills in interpersonal relationships and helped them to be more insightful in their work. The major points that were repeatedly mentioned by the majority of participants of the training include the following:

• A capacity to reach out to communities better than in the past.
• The confidence that they could translate learning into practice.
• A distinct difference between those who had been trained and those who had not. While those who had been trained coped well with post tsunami daily life crisis, those who had not floundered.
• Personal benefit as they ventilated during the training, rendering their own healing process much faster.
• The internal transformation produced by engaging the adults in re constructive activities.
• The acquired ability to train co-workers on psycho-social intervention
• The benefits of “venting” their feelings and sharing their experience with other community counselors during the post training contact programs, that helped them cope with the stress that came with handling grief-stricken survivors.
• The perceptible sharpening of innate qualities that are a natural part of any individual such as listening skills, use of questions, even reflective silences.

All participants felt that the duration of the training in the opinion was adequate for the work done. The study also indicated that even 16 months after the tsunami those who had not undergone the training were unable to cope with crises that they were subsequently faced with, while those who were trained could narrate in depth how they handled subsequent crisis situations. More than half of the trainees felt competent to identify and refer cases they were unable to handle to experts and several who were from the Public health department were aware of the services available and frequently referred them to experts.

The model now needs to be tested in other emergency situations.