Gauthamadas Udipi Disaster Mental Health
Contributions to Disaster Mental Health
Dr. Gautham has been recognised by the Govt. of Tamilnadu amd the Govt. of India as an expert in disaster psychosocial response. His efforts were lauded by the then Governor of Tamilnadu, the Hon’ble Shri Surjit Singh Barnala at a function to release his handbook in 2005.
Dr. Gautham was invited in 2007 to be member of an expert group tasked with formulating the first ever Disaster Management Guidelines on Psychosocial Support and Mental Health Services in Disasters, for India, by National Disaster Management Authority. The draft of the guidelines was reviewed by Dr. Gautham in 2008 and the guidelines were launched by the government in December 2009, wherein he is acknowledged as a significant contributor (p80).
Dr. Gautham organised five international workshops, the reports of which have been widely circulatedand and are said to have been instrumental in shaping the Sri Lanka government’s Disaster Management Road Map..
His work has left a mark on the psychosocial intervention in disasters and especially in involvement of women survivors in disaster mitigation. He innovated the concept of Community Counselor in the aftermath of the Super Tsunami 2004, and trained survivors from disaster affected communities and utilized them to provide succour to traumatized fellow survivors. His model for crisis intervention in large-scale disasters using “lay community counsellors” was used to set up the Community Counselor project in which 2500 villagers of 51 tsunami-affected villages in Cuddalore district were trained as lay community counsellors and provided succor to nearly 100,000 villagers affected by the trauma of the tsunami.
In the aftermath of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami Dr. Gautham decided to lend his expertise to alleviating trauma of the disaster stricken. Taking charge as director of the disaster management psycho-social intervention program of the National Lutheran Health and Medical Board, he set up the Academy for Disaster Management Education, Planning, and Training (ADEPT) which gained recognition from WHO and UNDP.
Using the Comprehensive Framework for Psychosocial Intervention in disasters, propounded by Dr. Gautham, ADEPT brought about “Social Transformation” in the tsunami affected community. This model was successfully implemented in 51 tsunami-affected villages in the Cuddalore District of Tamilnadu (2005-2008),156 quake affected villages in Kashmir (2005-2006), and many flood affected villages in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh (2006-2008). His team has the distinction of being the only group offering medical relief to quake survivors during the deep winter in Indian Kashmir in 2005.
Dr. Gautham was instrumental in creating a 1000-member strong Disaster Preparedness Youth Task Force in the tsunami affected villages in Cuddalore. His views on designing the health care disaster relief team feature in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Mission 2009 document.
Dr. Gautham’s Handbook for Community Counselor Trainers is widely acclaimed and:
- cataloged by the Library of Congress,
- catalogued by National Library of the Government of India
- cataloged by UNHCR’s Humanitarian Library
- catalogued by the Tamil Nadu Government Library.
- recommended by the Disaster Risk Management Team of UNDP and the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India
- forms part of the government of India’s Disaster Risk Management Program toolkit for “Mainstreaming Disability in Disaster Management.”
- recommended by the Australian Disability and Development consortium
- quoted in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Mission 2009 document on the “Tsunami threat in the Pacific,”
- quoted in the internationally acclaimed Community Based Psychosocial Services in Humanitarian Assistance Facilitators Guide.
- one of the materials recommended by the Association for Development of Education in Africa.[15]
- has been translated into Japaneseand has been used for counselling the traumatised survivors of Japan’s worst-ever disaster (combined earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear leak) of 2011.
- has been translated into Romanian and used to counsel survivors of the earthquakes in Romania
Status papers on “Social Transformation of Communities Affected by Natural Disasters” and “Psychosocial intervention in complex disasters” by Dr. Gautham, helped to implement recovery in the tsunami-affected communities.The training module for creating “community support leaders” developed by Gautham helped transform educated unemployed women in disaster-affected regions into community leaders who were respected and looked up to.
One of his unique programs was to link communities affected by disasters so that disaster relief and preparedness knowledge may be shared. Tsunami affected fishing communities in Tamilnadu sent relief materials to earthquake affected communities in Kasmir. Youth from Kashmir were tained as Community Counselors in the Tsunami affected community in Tamilnadu.
Referrences
Status papers on “Social Transformation of Communities Affected by Natural Disasters” and “Psychosocial intervention in complex disasters” by Dr. Gautham, helped to implement recovery in the tsunami-affected communities.The training module for creating “community support leaders” developed by Gautham helped transform educated unemployed women in disaster-affected regions into community leaders who were respected and looked up to.
One of his unique programs was to link communities affected by disasters so that disaster relief and preparedness knowledge may be shared. Tsunami affected fishing communities in Tamilnadu sent relief materials to earthquake affected communities in Kasmir. Youth from Kashmir were tained as Community Counselors in the Tsunami affected community in Tamilnadu.