Community-based Psychological Support – A Training Manual, 1st Edition

A comprehensive manual that includes 6 modules on training health volunteers to provide basic emotional and psychological support to children and adults in emergencies. The modules include “psychosocial wellbeing” “stress and coping” “supportive communication” “promoting community self-help” “populations with special needs” and “helping the helper”. The manual is pretty accessible to a layperson and does not use much clinical terminology. The strengths of the manual include 1) focus on understanding community systems of emotional and other support 2) focus on basic listening and communication skills rather than counseling and 3) focus on volunteers’ self awareness and possible burn out.