For over 25 years UKSLTG has been involved in work to promote mental health awareness, capacity building in skills and research, policy development as well as peace building and conflict resolution. For the past 16 years, this work has been carried out through Samutthãna (the King’s College London Centre for Trauma, Displacement and Mental Health) with the UKSLTG.
The 3-level training model we have developed takes both a top-down and bottom-up approach whereby we train skilled mental health professionals as well as grassroots community-based organisations. Over the past two decades the UKSLTG and Samutthãna have provided support to many Sri Lankan organisations through training with over 20,000 attendances of frontline workers including: Mental Health Professionals (Psychiatrists, Psychologists, Nurses, Occupational Therapists etc), Social Workers, Teachers, Religious Leads, NGO Workers and Volunteers. We do not do any direct clinical work as our central aim is to help enhance and develop the skills of the Sri Lankans who have an interest in mental health in order to ensure sustainability with the projects we work with. Some examples of our major projects are outlined below:
Examples of our projects in Sri Lanka, in collaboration with Samutthãna, our partner organisation.
Establishing the M.Phil Course in Clinical Psychology at the University of Colombo.
One of the major achievements of the UKSLTG and Samutthãna is the establishment of Sri Lanka’s first training course in Clinical Psychology. At the time of the tsunami, Sri Lanka could identify only six Clinical Psychologists in the country and reports on the psychosocial response to the tsunami by the WHO and others highlighted the country’s need for trained psychologists.
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Improving Mental Health and Reducing Economic Hardship of Vulnerable Women and Communities in Northern Sri Lanka
In 2015 a joint application between World Vision and Samutthãna to the European Union on a project on empowering women in the post conflict zone in Northern Sri Lanka was successful and the project was implemented between 2016 and 2018.
Promoting Service User (SU) Empowerment and Involvement in Sri Lanka
UKSLTG have been working with Samutthãna to promote service user empowerment and involvement in Sri Lanka since 2014. The project has been led by Diana Byrne who has volunteered with the UKSLTG and Samuthana for over a five-year period to promote the Recovery College philosophy.
Improving access to Mental Health Training and Supervision for Counsellors and CSOs in the Northern Districts.
The Blossom Trust has generously funded several projects in the Northern districts including a training program for counsellors working with the Sri Lankan charity, Family Rehabilitation Centre that focused on working with victims of trauma including survivors of torture.
CBT Course
Dr Lorna Fortune and Dorian Cole from the UKSLTG executive committee conducted a CBT course with a series of linked workshops and integrated supervision, over a 6 month period, when they were volunteering in Sri Lanka with Samutthãna.