Climate change disasters have a psychological toll that is ignored

Lost your password? Please enter your username or email address. You will receive a link to create a new password via email.Lost your password? Please enter your username or email address. You will receive a link to create a new password via email.hose living close to the river and bridges, take caution. Tropical Cyclone Freddy will hit Malawi from this evening .” In the weeks before the cyclone hit, the warnings were intensified on social media and from newsrooms.

Days turned to weeks and individuals became emotionally overwhelmed, so a call for psycho-social services from counsellors went out. I was among the social workers under the Association of Social Workers in Malawi who volunteered. The counselling provided in camps could only be very brief. A counsellor would spend about 20 minutes with someone and then have to move on to the next person. Even then, not everyone who needed psycho-social services was reached.

As a result, the department is strengthening preparedness by providing training in first aid, search and rescue and reporting on disaster risk reduction, as well as providing relief items to people and identifying land for relocation for affected districts. But both the policy and the implementation plan ignore psycho-social disaster recovery.

During disaster recovery, social workers can deliver psychological first aid to individuals. This helps to stabilise emotions, reduce distress and promote adaptive coping strategies in the early stages of recovery. Group counselling sessions will support survivors experiencing psychological distress, grief, anxiety or trauma by offering empathetic listening, emotional support and providing coping strategies.

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