As part of the PAHO/WHO regional project to support countries to strengthen their response capacity and expand Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) care to populations most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, virtual sessions on how to provide remote psychosocial care and how to supervise remote caregivers in humanitarian settings have been developed following the completion of the WHO EQUIP self-learning courses on remote care.
Four virtual sessions were conducted: three on remote care and a fourth focused on conducting supervision remotely. These sessions were attended by 109 participants, 65 women and 44 men from Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, Honduras, Mexico, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Venezuela. The vast majority were psychology professionals, followed by psychiatry, nursing, social work, medicine (family and surgery) and public health.
The most relevant questions raised were how to avoid dependency in the helping relationship with service users, how to establish a framework for intervention where the services provided, and intervention times are clear. Strategies to foster autonomy and the importance of reinforcing concepts such as confidentiality and informed consent were also discussed. Another common concern was how to address risk situations, especially suicide attempts.
Several countries shared experiences on how they have implemented ad hoc telephone-based psychological first aid services in response to the pandemic, specialised care services for vulnerable populations for whom it was essential to avoid interruption of care (children with ASD and people with substance and alcohol abuse) and experiences of remote group care.
It has undoubtedly been a very useful space for shared learning and very well appreciated by the participants who raised the need to create a community of practice amid the immense challenge we face in having to adapt our interventions to the remote format and for which PAHO will continue to provide technical cooperation.