THEMATIC SESSION E2: DISASTER PSYCHO-SOCIAL CARE MANAGEMENT Chairperson: Prof. K. Sekar National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences, Bangalore PSYCHOSOCIAL CARE SURVIVORS OF DISASTERS PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

s: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Management 1 THEMATIC SESSION E2: DISASTER PSYCHO-SOCIAL CARE MANAGEMENT Chairperson: Prof. K. Sekar National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences, Bangalore PSYCHOSOCIAL CARE SURVIVORS OF DISASTERS PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE K. Sekar Department of Psychiatric Social Work, NIMHANS, Bangalore Email: [email protected] Psychosocial care support to the disaster survivors in India spreads over the last two and a half decades. It was first initiated after the fire circus tragedy by NIMHANS in Bangalore to understand the emotional needs of the bereaved families who lost their children in this disaster in 1981. This was followed by other human made disasters like the Bhopal gas tragedy (1984), the Gujarat riots (2002), displaced persons due to the conflict between the forest brigand and the STF in the forest area adjoining Mettur Dam (2003), the Sri Lankan refugees in Tamil Nadu (2004), the Kahmir conflict (2004). In terms of natural disaster NIMHANS has effectively contributed to the Lattur earthquake (1992), Orissa Super Cyclone (1999), Gujarat earthquake (2001), South Indian Tsunami (2004) and the Kashmir earthquake (2005). The priory assumption that underlies psychosocial care is that no one who experiences the event or witnesses the event is untouched by the event and disaster stress and grief reactions are normal responses to an abnormal situation. This necessitates normalization of these reactions to gain mastery Abstracts: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Managements: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Management 2 over the situation. Socially the available support system gets eroded and there is a need for rebuilding the same at the earliest. The life style changes subsequent to disasters are maladaptive coping mechanisms of the individuals, families and the communities. This could be changed or altered by creating a caring community through development of capacities among the available community resources especially the government sector personnel like, health, education, welfare, and the local PRI, SHGs, NCC, NSS volunteers, NGO and CBO workers. Various materials for information, education and communication at different levels to provide knowledge about the psychosocial care activities need to reach out to the population from the rescue through rebuilding phases. Currently there are tools and techniques like manuals for working with the communities and other vulnerable groups. By training and developing the psychosocial care workers at the community facilitation of providing emotional first aid, psycho social care, support and rehabilitation to the survivors could be achieved. Standardised training modules are currently available While working with the affected population in different areas on psychosocial care special focus needs to be there on various vulnerable groups to ensure their normalization and recovery at the earliest. Similarly the stress among disaster workers needs to be taken into cognizance. Evidence based research work has started emerging from the Indian disaster responses. Research from Orissa, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Kashmir and other States affected by disasters show reduction in distress, disability, impact of event and better quality of life, community life Abstracts: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Managements: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Management 3 and cost reduction in health care subsequent to psychosocial care interventions. The futuristic perspectives need attention in terms of moving the agenda from emotional first aid through psychosocial care through psychosocial rehabilitation to disaster mental health. 2. Strengthening of the referral system to the secondary and tertiary care. 3. Community based disaster preparedness to include psychosocial care. 4. Address life style changes and arrest / prevention of certain deviances like family violence, increased alcohol use. 5. Networking and development of District based PSC resource center. 6. Preparation of National / Regional / State level community level volunteers for disaster psychosocial care activities. 7. Making availability of the capacity building material in all regional languages. 8. Caring of the carers through stress management programmes. 9. Integrate psychosocial care as basic curriculum in all welfare, education and health sectors, medical education and schools of social work. 10. Pursue psychosocial care policy changes and developments. Abstracts: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Managements: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Management 4 PSYCHOSOCIAL SUPPORT THROUGH TRAINED COMMUNITY LEVEL WORKERS IN TSUNAMI AFFECTED POPULATIONS. C Varghese Social Change & Non-Communicable Diseases, WHO, New Delhi Email: [email protected] Psychosocial support is an important aspect of disaster prevention and management. The traditional approach is to depute mental health professionals including psychiatrists to address the immediate traumatic phase. This is useful for those who are in acute need and who have manifest problems. However a large majority of the affected population will need sustained low level psychosocial support. In the post Tsunami phase in India, the WHO along with the Department of Social Welfare, UNTRS, and partners have developed a model for providing sustained, low cost community based volunteer provided support systems. Community level workers who are the anchor for this programme are selected from various categories of people, including teachers, health workers, and members of self help groups etc, who have volunteered for this purpose. A cascading system of training was developed and in Tamil Nadu, 2813 Community Level Workers (CLWs) were trained in the 11 affected Districts. They were able to support more than 30,000 families and 150,000 individuals. The work of the CLWs was coordinated under the Department of Social Welfare and the District Social Welfare Officers provided coordination, Abstracts: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Managements: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Management 5 supervision and linkage with health systems. An exclusive cell was created in the Directorate of Social Welfare for management of the entire activity in Tamil Nadu. Similar programmes were taken up in Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Pondicherry and have proved to be of immense value in providing psychosocial support. Special attention needs to be paid to children and schools are a good opportunity to reach them. There has to be community based support for those who are out of school. The needs and expectations of the community changes over the period of recovery and rehabilitation and the PSS programme needs to be aligned to this scenario. Alcohol abuse and related problems also seem to be prevalent in such settings and the CLWs were provided additional capacity for addressing this important issue. A resource kit has been developed compiling all the materials and manuals and will serve as a guide for disaster preparedness and mitigation programmes. Abstracts: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Managements: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Management 6 PSYCHO SOCIAL CARE TRAINING FOR PERSONS WORKING WITH TSUNAMI SURVIVORS IN TAMIL NADU D. Nagaraja, R. Parthasarathy, R. D Pandian NIMHANS, Bangalore Email: [email protected] The devastation as a result of the tsunami waves that wreaked havoc on the 26 December 2004 has been termed as unprecedented in the history of modern independent India. NIMHANS was quick to reach out to those affected. Emotional problems following disasters often tend to be neglected. This happens because they are relatively invisible when compared to the damage to life, physical health and property. It is important to remember that emotional problems occur very commonly. The disaster survivors need emotional support. It is not possible for the professionals to give such support directly to all the needy for prolonged period. There is a need for training various professionals and non professionals in providing psychosocial care interventions. The methodology employed for this study was to offer need based psychosocial care training to the personnels from various affected districts and 25 such training programmes were conducted with 912 participants. The results of the study reveal that trained volunteers were providing psychosocial care effectively for women, children, men, disabled and the aged. 69% of them gained confidence in providing psychosocial care interventions, 12% of them were able to train the local volunteers on psychosocial care, 30% of the trained personnels were visiting the families regularly, 22% of them were also visiting the local schools / anganwadi centers, 64% of them felt that providing psychosocial care was highly helpful to tsunami survivors, 53% of them were satisfied in Abstracts: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Managements: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Management 7 providing psychosocial care and 55% of them reported that tsunami survivors could go back to their normal routines. Abstracts: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Managements: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Management 8 PSYCHOSOCIAL CARE FOR SURVIVORS OF TSUNAMI NIMHANS CARE INDIA INITIATIVES A Raj, G Henry and K Sekar NIMHANS, Bangalore Email: [email protected] Tsunami in coastal areas of Tamilnadu affected the physical, psychological, social and economical status of the survivors. The psychosocial status of the fisher folk and the survivors in total turned to be very difficult. NIMHANS CARE India took the initiative to address the psychosocial issues of the survivors of Tsunami in three affected districts of Tamil nadu. Community level workers from Health, Education, Welfare and PRI Sectors including the volunteers and SHG members from partner NGOs of CARE India were trained through capacity building programs on how to approach the affected population and address the psychosocial issues. This capacity building for the government sectors helped them to address psychosocial issues with more clarity, confidence and holistic view. The trained staffs were then followed up by the psychosocial care team who trained them. This was mainly to assist them in providing psychosocial care and higher level of psychological intervention for the survivors as well as to find out the evolving psychosocial issues in the community after the disaster with the help of the trained personnel in the community. During the follow up of the trained personnel it was noticed that the staff in the affected areas were stressed out due to work pressure and load which in turn resulted in decrease in the outcome of the work as well as the Abstracts: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Managements: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Management 9 dissatisfaction in the work. Stress management programs were organized for the staff of the above mentioned sectors which helped them to discuss the various stressful factors. The provision of psychosocial care for the survivors through the CLWs and the care for the care givers also helps to sustain the care provided to the survivors. Abstracts: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Managements: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Management 10 ANDHRA PRADESH TSUNAMI PSYCHOSOCIAL RESPONSE PROGRAM R Pavitra, C Nagaraju, Rajashekhar, Yashasvini, K Sekar, NIMHANS, Bangalore Email: [email protected] [email protected] NIMHANS the nodal centre for psycho social care in disasters in India, in strategic partnership with CARE an International Charitable Organization extended the psycho social support programme in Andhra Pradesh subsequent to the Tsunami disaster. The psycho social care programme was extended to the severe disaster hit coastal areas of Krishna, and Prakasam Districts of Andhra Pradesh. The huge losses caused severe trauma and insecurity about future among the survivors of Andhra Pradesh. Hence it was felt that providing psychosocial care would enable the people to handle the losses and mastery over the event in the long term. Following initial assessment various intervention/strategies planned were and conducted to support the psychosocial and mental health needs. Capacity building of the existing staff within the government and nongovernmental agencies through a cascading model, supporting the activities in the grass root level and also addressing the issues of harmonising personal, professional and familial life through stress management workshops were the activities that were carried out in phase one of the programme. An initial sensitization workshop for the Government officials and NGO heads were conducted in district headquarters in presence of District Collector and other representatives from health, education and welfare sectors. Subsequently 66 Master trainers were trained to train others Abstracts: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Managements: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Management 11 in the respective sectors. Totally 478 community level workers were trained in Krishna and Prakasham districts. Review of the activities brought out certain important issues like, the Master trainers were able to train other community level workers after the training; able to use the training effectively for identifying issues and providing alternatives to help people in the community around them. Though there were various problems to reach widely to all the affected members in the community but the approach has shown a very clear outline to reach to the vulnerable people in the community. Considering the current situation the programme for the next year have considered developing special focus on the vulnerable groups like single women, children and negative coping behaviour among the men. Emphasis has been laid to strengthen the community level workers to increase the outreach of the training to the community and exploring possibilities to help the communities to use these competencies, also to address and solve stressors due to subsequent life events. Community based psychosocial disaster preparedness and competence building among the children and adolescents also has been planned. Parallel effort has been build up to increase the referral and capacity building of the local medical practitioners to ensure mental health care for the mentally ill survivors in the community. Through comprehensive monitoring system the effort is facilitating to create a sustainable psychosocial care approach in the community. Abstracts: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Managements: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Management 12 PSYCHOSOCIAL CARE EXPERIENCES & EXPERIMENTS FROM KERALA AND TAMILNADU L.S Ghandi Doss and Bangalore University, Bangalore C Thiagarajan DEEDS, Bangalore Email: [email protected] Psychosocial care is an essential need for all people experiencing a disaster. The PSC intervention programme jointly implemented by DEEDS, SAHAYI, Little Flower Convent with the technical support of NIMHANS Bangalore at Alappad, and three worst affected villages in Kanniyakumari has proved the utility of psycho social care with ample evidence. The programme is continuing with financial assistance from MALTESER International, Germany. The magnitude of the problem of psychosocial trauma of the affected population is large. Community level workers were selected to provide psychosocial care and were trained by NIMHANS. The PSC activities focused towards the normalization of life of the tsunami survivors, alleviating their psychological distress, strengthening resiliency, increase the family functioning and ensure quality of life. It involved a spectrum of care including provision of temporary housing, educational assistance, psychological intervention appropriate to the phase of the disaster, facilitating compensation issues, health care and livelihood for the needy families. The CLWs closely interacted with survivors to decrease their physical and emotional effect and extended PSC support in all areas for Abstracts: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Managements: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Management 13 rebuilding the shattered lives of the affected people. As a part of the intervention, the team conducted a series of action focused activities for the children like community living camps, recreational activities, various competitions, tour programmes, performing folk art programmes. The programme aimed to strengthening the PSC activities and in turn developing a system of Caring Community by tapping community resources. The review and monitoring activities of the project have served as opportunities for individual and collective feedback as well as for larger exposure on relevant issues and learning new skills. Abstracts: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Managements: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Management 14 INTEGRATED PSYCHOSOCIAL CARE PROGRAMME FOR TSUNAMI AFFECTED COMMUNITY IN ALAPPAD PANCHAYAT IN KOLLAM G. Placid Sahayi, Peroorkada, Kerala Email: [email protected] ‘Sahayi’ Centre for Collective Learning and Action, a regional Voluntary Development Support organisation, started its crisis response intervention for tsunami relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction in Alappad Gram Panchayat in Kollam district, Kerala within two days of the global tragedy on 26 December 2004. Sahayi’s approach in addressing issues related to tsunami disaster was holistic in nature. It started by addressing the immediate needs such as removing debris, providing drinking water and food, nutritious food to children and pregnant women, visiting relief camps, listening and consoling the affected people. This was followed by construction of temporary shelters and toilets, retrofitting and repairing of damaged houses, providing dress for school children and aged people, food ration, kitchen utensils, organising child recreation etc. Integrated psycho social care programme was carried out in collaboration with DEEDS and NIMHANS, Bangalore for the affected people to overcome their problems. The psycho social care programme was organized with a team of 20 trained community level workers (CLWs) under the supervision of a core team of experienced clinical psychologist/counselors. Based on a base line data collected from 1300 families in Alappad Panchayat on the intensity of psychosocial stress and trauma, 500 families were selected for intensive intervention and another 500 families were selected for extensive Abstracts: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Managements: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Management 15 intervention based on the level of vulnerability. Identifying persons having severe psychosocial stress and trauma from among the above families, regular family visits, arranging medical check ups, providing first aid, trauma and grief counseling, crisis/problem solving counseling, identification of post-traumatic stress reactions, arranging referral services etc were the major activities. Regular documentation of the progress, development of case stories, and structured training programme for CLWs and core team members on psycho social care in tsunami disaster, stress management, life skill education and common mental disorders were the other activities intended to improve the quality of intervention. Considering the sustainability of the psychosocial intervention initiated by Sahayi and the continuous use of the expertise developed by Sahayi to be used in other disaster situations, the trained CLWs were organised together and Sahayi promoted and registered a community based organisation (SWAST) with their membership. A series of orientations/training have been organised for strengthening the SWAST. Review after one year on the progress of the psychosocial intervention showed that 40% of the intervened families were fully and 20% of intervened families were partially recovered from the psychosocial stress and trauma. Considering the relevance of offering continuous support for the remaining 40% and occasional support for the partially recovered, Sahayi started the 2 phase – Psycho Social rehabilitation phase from July 2006 onwards. The components include a drop in centre, counseling, yoga, skill training for alternate employment, and support for income generation programme. Abstracts: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Managements: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Management 16 PSYCHOSOCIAL CARE CAPACITY BUILDING PROGRAMME FOR GOs AND NGOs OF KASHMIR EARTHQUAKE SURVIVORS V Mathew, S Y Arafat, S Bhadra, K Sekar NIMHANS, Bangalore Email: [email protected] Psychosocial care for the survivors of disaster is well recognized to facilitate healing of the mind after any traumatic experiences. Subsequent to the earthquake on 8 October 2006 in the northern Kashmir, as per the request from the Government of Jammu and Kashmir, NIMHANS in partnership with CARE India and Government of Jammu and Kashmir initiated a six month programme to support the psychosocial care for the earthquake survivors by imparting capacity building training to community level workers. NIMHANS carried out the psycho social care need assessment in October 2005. Subsequently to facilitate emotional first aid, 40 NGO personnel, counselors, and relief volunteers working with MSF and AAI in affected areas for the disaster survivors were trained for three days in two batches. This was followed by a sensitization workshop for the Government officials of Health, Social welfare, Education and other NGO functionaries on “Psychosocial care for the survivors of Kashmir earth quake” on 17 of April 2006, in Regional Institute of Health and Family welfare, Dhobiwan, Baramulla District. Following this the basic psycho social care training programme was completed for 38 medical officers, 162 community health workers, 201 Anganwaadi workers and 190 School teachers in Baramulla and Kupwara districts for 3 days in the months of April to August 2006. For Abstracts: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Managements: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Management 17 the capacity building training on psychosocial care for the survivor of earthquake various materials has been developed in and widely distributed. Field based support in terms of follow up, hand holding and review was carried out for the trained health, social welfare and teachers, which showed participants being able to initiate psychosocial care giving practices in their work environment and in their personal circles. This training phase was concluded with a review workshop on psychosocial care for survivors of Kashmir earthquake, on 18 October 2006 at SKICC, Srinagar. The workshop was attended by higher officials, trained participants from the Health, Social welfare and School education departments and from NGOs imparting psychosocial care work in Kashmir. The need for larger coverage to address the conflict situation, larger number of trainers to be trained locally, involvement of the Institute of Mental Health in taking forward the psycho social care issue and implementation of the District Mental Health Programme, technical support for the education sector and provision of ‘psycho social care kit for working with children’ by the ICDS sectors were recommended. Abstracts: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Managements: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Management 18 IMPLEMENTING THE INDIAN RED CROSS SOCIETY/ AMERICAN RED CROSS PSYCHOSOCIAL SUPPORT PROGRAM IN INDIA J O. Prewitt Diaz American Red Cross—International Services, Washington, D.C. Email: [email protected] A Dayal American Red Cross, Sri Lanka In India the American Red Cross serves at the pleasure of the Indian Red Cross Society. This relationship has been ongoing since 2002. This workshop will discuss the key elements of the American Red Cross Psychosocial Program, and will illustrate how these interventions enhance resilience, emotional, psychological competence, and functional capacity in both communities and individuals. Furthermore, direct attention will be given to how the IRCS/ARC Psychosocial Program can be tailored for implementation in a variety of physical (communities, IDP camps, or schools) and social settings (linguistic, religious, cultural context). Finally, the presentation will address issues of exportability, sustainability and utility in program implementation, and will map the road from emergency response to reconstruction on to longer term development. In discussing these topics, the presentation will make use of a detailed case study from the Indian Red Cross/ American Red Cross involvement in the Kumbakonam School Fire. Objectives: 1. Participants will be able to identify and discuss the four program areas of the IRCS/ARC Psychosocial Support Program; Abstracts: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Managements: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Management 19 2. Participants will be able to explain the relationship between PSP program elements and psychosocial competence and resilience; 3. Participants will be able to discuss how the IRCS/ARC Psychosocial Support Program can be tailored to meet diverse cultural, ethnic, and linguistic needs. CONTOURS OF PSYCHOSOCIAL CARE IN DISASTER RELIEF PROGRAMS C. B Singh CARE, India, New Delhi Email: [email protected], [email protected] In the recent past programs related to provision of psychosocial services to the disaster affected victims were observed to be on the rise. This is a very positive trend as it acknowledges the fact that the victims of disasters require not merely materialistic relief measures but also efforts that help them to get over problems related to psychological impact the event has created on them and help normalize. However, it needs to be understood that support of any nature will tend to have certain positive impact on the normalization process. Hence for a Program Manager, to undertake effective resource deployment need to distinguish between the programs that could be attributed directly to the observable benefits in the area of psychosocial care from the programs that provide benefits indirectly. This paper introduces to the disaster management community to consider certain programming principles as essentials for a program to be considered as psychosocial care program. The principles essentially provide the Abstracts: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Managements: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Management 20 necessary contours for a successful psychosocial care program. These principles are: (1) Availability of trained expert to supervise the programs: Psychosocial care programs need to be implemented under the supervision of an expert (2) Training human resource: Personnel implementing the psychosocial care programs must be trained in this area (3) Measuring change: Psychosocial care programs should measure the normalization process as a part of the program (4) Linkages to the referral system: Psychosocial care program need to connected to a referral mechanism necessarily enabling it to refer the needy individuals (5) Established linkage between the activity proposed and normalization process. The activities being proposed under the psychosocial care program need to have an established correlation to the normalization process, in case no such data is available, then the program should consider researching such linkages as a part of the program for future benefit. It is understandable that the subject is under an evolution; however certain discipline from this stage will help establishing measured programming principles for the benefit of subject and the disaster affected. Abstracts: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Managements: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Management 21 POST TSUNAMI HEALTH CARE IN RURAL AREAS N V. Chandran, B Marian, G. Selvam, Paramasivan and A. Chandra The East West Foundation of India (TEWFI), Kadapakkam Email: [email protected] The Tsunami of December 26, 2004 has created an upsurge of human compassion and love and support of a magnitude unknown in history. The Tsunami has compelled organizations working for marginalized peoples to address the issues arising out of Tsunami on a long term basis. The East West Foundation of India (TEWFI) has a presence in Kadapakkam over the last 9 years since 1997 running a rural primary health centre reaching out to more than 12000 villagers in and around Kadapakkam and also running children’s home housing destitute and abandoned children. The Foundation with its commitment to serving the rural community was one of the first who undertook relief work in the initial stages of the Tsunami with medical aid and relief material to the needy Tsunami affected. With no other organization addressing the long term health and mental health issues in the surrounding villages, the Foundation has undertaken a five year long term Post Tsunami Health Care and Research Project. The main objectives of the project were 1) to do a detailed need assessment of five Tsunami affected villages with regard to their housing, livelihood and health. 2) To assess the physical and psychological health needs of the men, women and children who survive the Tsunami and plan appropriate health care. Abstracts: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Managements: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Management 22 The methodology involved a complete assessment of 5 villages in and around Kadapakkam in 2 phases. Various physical and psychological instruments were used to assess various physical and psychosocial dimensions of functioning such as impact of the events, level of functioning and quality of life post Tsunami. The children still had an impact of the Tsunami, with a large number of the preschool children being malnourished and underweight. The Quality of Life was found to be of moderate level in most dimensions; nearly one third of the population experienced distress at the time of assessment. The majority of the adults still had a mild impact of the Tsunami. One third of the population had disability higher than the normal population. Based on these findings psychosocial intervention has been planned and initiated with the children in the community. Mobile health clinics address needs of preschool and senior citizens. The process of forming groups among youth and men to address issues of recovery are in progress. Abstracts: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Managements: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Management 23 EFFECTIVENESS OF A PSYCHO-PHYSIOLOGICAL TRAUMA TREATMENT/EDUCATION/SELF-HELP STRATEGY AMONG TSUNAMI SURVIVORS IN TAMIL NADU R Selvam and B Nielsen Trauma Vidya, California, U.S.A. A simple psycho-physiological treatment cum self-help strategy, based on recent scientific and clinical insights into the neuro-biology of trauma and trauma healing, and implemented among over 400 tsunami survivors in Tamil Nadu, has been found to be quite effective in resolving symptoms of post-traumatic stress from the tsunami from single treatment/education sessions. The approach, because of its simplicity and its use of the selfregulating mechanisms in the nervous system, if incorporated into traditional psycho-social care trainings, offers the possibility for quick and effective relief from symptoms of post-traumatic stress in post-disaster settings, symptoms that are often mistakenly understood as uniformly needing specialized and prolonged mental health care for resolution. Abstracts: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Managements: Thematic Session Disaster Psycho-Social Care and Management 24 TRAUMA COUNSELING TRAINING AND ITS APPLICATION