iCALL’s response to COVID-19 crisis.
The COVID-19 pandemic presents not only a threat to physical health/life, but also to the psycho-social lives of individuals. The necessary course of action pertaining to containment strategies, also has psycho-social consequences such as increase in anxiety and uncertainty about future, loneliness, disruption of life plans, estrangement from family/loved ones, restrictions in movement and freedom, loss of livelihoods of people. The psycho-social impact is even severe for marginalised and vulnerable groups.
While iCALL continues to provide its regular counseling services over phone, email and chat, it has launched another phone line (9152987820) which is dedicated to addressing psycho-social impact of COVID-19 pandemic. This line can be accessed by individuals from Monday-Saturday between 10 a.m.- 6 p.m. This psycho-social service aims to assist individuals and communities with emotional and practical support, by providing safe space for addressing emotional distress, information related to COVID-19 pandemic and resultant consequences to health, livelihood, food, transportation and other areas of life and by linking individuals to appropriate referrals, resources and services.
iCALL team wishes to increase the reach of the helpline; especially to the marginalised communities. While iCALL team continues to provide emotional support and reliable information to its callers, mobilising practical help for individuals from different parts of the country, at times becomes, challenging.
iCALL team is building resource directories to connect the callers with the required support. Working in collaboration with organisations situated in different parts of India, is helping iCALL mobilise the required help for the callers. Spreading a word about iCALL’s services, especially to people from marginalised communities, will help us reach out to wider and unreached communities. iCALL aims to demonstrate how social, practical and psychological aspects of COVID-19 pandemic can be addressed in an integrated fashion.
Along with service provision, iCALL plans to continue its mental health and psycho-social work by partnering with Government, non-government and International organisations using strategies of capacity enhancement, awareness creation and research.
To get in touch with us, please send an email to - corona-response@tiss.edu
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