UNAIR NEWS – Surabaya City Government has implemented a mental service scaling up strategy by integrating mental health services at community health centers (puskesmas). Through this strategy, Psychology Clinic has been operating in each puskesmas in the city of Surabaya.
Through the implementation of mental services scaling up strategy, hopefully, the community will get easy access to mental health services, and reduce the negative view of the community because individuals with psychiatric problems no longer have to visit special health facilities, such as mental hospitals and psychological service units.
UNAIR Faculty of Psychology supports the Surabaya City Government’s policy by conducting mental health first aid (MHFA) training activities for psychology staff at puskesmas. The MHFA training activity is also a community service program from Faculty of Psychology, UNAIR.
The MHFA training was held on Saturday, November 2, 2019 at Faculty of Psychology, UNAIR and attended by 63 psychology staff of community health centers in Surabaya. The training speakers were four lecturers from the Department of Clinical Psychology and Mental Health, Atika Dian Ariana, Tri Kurniati Ambarini, Hamidah, and Dian Kartika Amelia Arbi. The training was opened by the Dean of Psychology UNAIR, Nurul Hartini.
“The faculty is happy and proud to be able to carry out regular training for psychologists from the puskesmas. We hope that this training can improve the competence of puskesmas psychologists in providing initial treatment for mental disorders. As puskesmas provides the first-level service, of course, referral procedures can be carried out if necessary, “said Nurul Hartini.
According to the Head of Executive Committee, Atika Dian Ariana, the focus of this year’s training was initial treatment in cases of depression, self-harming behavior, and suicidal behavior or ideas. The focus of this training was inspired by the results of discussions with Surabaya City Health Office and by considering incident mental cases.
Atika said that this year’s training was focused on highlighting disorders related to suicidal behavior, such as depression and self-harming behavior.
“Apparently the trainees also expressed an increase in the number of suicidal behavior incidents. It means that mastery on initial handling to suicide related cases is absolutely essential for psychology staff at puskesmas, “said Atika.
In the training, participants showed great enthusiasm as there were many questions from them and discussions taking place interactively throughout the training session.
Meanwhile, analysis from the pre-test and post-test data showed that there was a significant improvement on mental health literacy from the participants, specifically related to the four disorders that became the training material.
In providing training, the team of lecturers conduct monitoring and evaluation. Firstly, pre-test and post-test were held to find out whether training effective. Secondly, a written evaluation is conducted at the end of the training. Finally, RTL (follow-up design) assignments were given to participants who are gathered two weeks after the training.
RTL is a joint commitment between the training organizer and the participants as program implementation at puskesmas, and Surabaya City Health Office as the health service manager.
“In principle, we want to ensure the benefits from this activity to be sustainable, not stopping at the participants, and not just this year,” concluded Atika. (*)
Editor: Binti Q. Masruroh
