The century-old Central Institute of Psychiatry (CIP) of Ranchi has recently intensified its mental health awareness campaign for students with special focus on the motto “Wellness, not illness”.
The institute also signed an MoU with a local school on Friday for setting up a mental health wellness centre there.
“In the post-Covid situation, we are now receiving more students and youths who are approaching us for counselling or treatment. It is a good sign that the students and their guardians have, to a large extent, put aside the stigma they earlier had attached to mental illness and are approaching us,” CIP director Dr Basudeb Das said.
The demand for counselling of students on mental health issues has significantly gone up across the country these days, he said, adding it is always better to make people aware about the dos and don’ts beforehand.
CIP, Ranchi, signs an MoU with the Tender Heart School, Tupudana on Friday for setting up a mental health awareness clinic on the latter’s premises Sourced by The Telegraph
“Compared to 25-30 children earlier, we now have to attend to around 100 children and adolescents at our OPD (outpatient department) everyday,” informed Dr Nishant Goyal, associate professor in charge of CIP’s child and adolescent psychiatry department.
Teams from CIP recently conducted mental health awareness programmes at some schools in urban and rural areas in the Ranchi district such as Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya and Chiranjeevee Concept School where they got very good response, Dr Das said, giving details and added they would also do the same in some premier higher educational institutions soon.
“We also signed an MoU with Tender Heart School at Tupudana in the outskirts of Ranchi on Friday for setting up a mental health wellness clinic on their premises,” the CIP director informed, adding Dr Goyal would be the coordinator for the clinic.
“The objective of the clinic is to spread awareness about mental health issues, prevention of illness and promotion of wellness,” Dr Goyal said.
They would train and empower the teachers — from pre-primary to secondary level — so that they can identify students having mental health issues and present them before the specialists whenever needed, Dr Goyal added.
Their medical teams comprising psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers from CIP will visit the clinic, initially fortnightly and later monthly, for offering remedial services to such students who will need those, he further said.
The CIP will also conduct sessions for ensuring wellness of the teachers so that they can learn how to handle their own stress and anxiety and get prepared for helping students doing the same.
“That’s also in our agenda and we have already planned to organise evenings with parents for empowering them and even holding one-to-one counselling if required,” Dr Goyal informed when pointed out the guardians also have a role to play in ensuring wellness of their children.
The CIP has been conducting mental health awareness camps at schools for a long time, he further informed, adding they were doing it at St Xavier’s School in Hazaribagh for over the past two decades and a half and also initiated the same in another school at Ghato in neighbouring Ramgarh district.
“Those camps proved to be very useful, not only for students but also teachers and even guardians,” said Shib Shankar Goswami, who has been teaching at the Hazaribagh school for the past two decades.
