TT deep in trauma

AS reports of murders, rapes, domestic violence and robberies continue to dominate media headlines almost on a daily basis, TT has to learn how to grapple with the effects of escalating violence and insecurity.

“The country continues to experience severe trauma from all levels,” trauma specialist Hanif Benjamin told Newsday. “For example, we saw on the boardwalk the shooting of innocent people,” he said of the bloodbath that recently took place at the very public boardwalk in Chaguaramas, in which three people were killed and three wounded, among them an eight-year-old boy and which caused residents in the area to resort to a self-imposed curfew.

“The society is traumatised, because the society has become a violent one. We no longer talk to each other, we fight it out. We no longer have discussions. ‘We going to chop you up, we will kill you, we going to burn down your house,’ is how we now communicate,” he said.

But how did it get to this point?

Benjamin believes mental illness stemming from trauma and the inaccessibility of proper services to treat with it plays a major role in what TT has become. He said he and his team at the Centre for Human Development (TCHD) have been working with individuals and in communities throughout TT for the past five years, and have seen and heard a lot to convince them of this.

“Young people who are under a lot of pressure – pressure from society, pressure from self – who want to do well but they don’t know how to.

"Some of these people have to live every day with loss and people dying around them and no one is addressing their grief and loss; and then we wonder why they behave the way they do. When you are traumatised and not treated, you become numb. Then you want to go out there and do.

"Too often we treat the effects of trauma as bad behaviour and treat it from a punitive standpoint.”

He said the aim of the TCHD is to provide trauma treatment, grief and loss counselling to as many people as it can.

Benjamin recalled when he returned to TT in 2012 after completing his professional studies abroad, he was eager to put into practice what he had learned.

“I was ready but quickly disappointed, because having sent out 200 applications for jobs, I did not get a single response until a year later.”

He said the centre was incorporated in 2013 but got off to a rough start.

“There was a disconnect between what the people needed and the programmes that people were asking me to do.

"I recognised there was a way in which we ought to engage communities, which wasn’t a programme someone sat and designed without first understanding communities.

"So I knew in order to make any type of change, I needed to understand the community and what is going on there. And being a trauma specialist, at the time I was understanding that there was deep trauma within TT. TCHD then took on a trauma-informed approach.”

However, he said although the centre was a limited company, somehow all the work it was doing seemed to be non-governmental organisation (NGO)-type work, with very little income.

“I wanted to have a community-type model where the average man on the street could access the service. Immediately we began to work in the communities. We saw ourselves in home therapy, in community centres, schools, training up and down TT.”

Eventually the centre expanded to include other services.

“We realised there was a need for specialities and so the centre became the Centre for Human Development Group of Companies Ltd. And under the umbrellas we have the Centre for Human Development Ltd Psychological and Counselling Company, TCHD Postgraduate Training Institute, that specialises in training. Then there is the International Centre for Mediation and Mediation Studies, because we believe that mediation, restorative justice, all those things are integral parts of therapy.”

He said in the last year and a half the centre would have forgone over $200,000 worth of work because some people were not able to pay for the services.

“So we created the NGO, the Centre For Change. One of the premises of TCHD is that no one would be told, ‘No.’ We cannot turn you away if you need help.

"It’s either we give you the help or find somebody who can. We raise funds to continue helping people. One of the things we believe here is that operating in a multi-systemic way can help. So we partner with other NGOs.”

TCHD, he said, works in the communities, with ministries, churches, faith-based organisations and other NGOs.

“We have trained over 4,000 people since inception.

"I think I’m good at what I do and I can sit in my office and see five people for the day, five people who need help – but that’s just five people. If I teach you, or I teach teachers and police, or I teach communities to identify problems, then I would have helped more people per capita. Because now a teacher would have been able to recognise a child who is living in silence in trauma and make the necessary referrals.

"If you are informed and you understand why a particular behaviour is the way it is, you can now alter your behaviour to deal with it. You won’t become a psychologist or a trauma specialist, but you understand, and that’s all it takes for the outcome to be different.”

He said every year the centre hosts an international conference, and this year’s event will be held from August 13, at the North Central Regional Health Authority rooftop, with training from August 14-16.

“In five years we would have had five different conferences and/or collaborative works.

"How can we educate the public? How can we help people to understand mental health? To understand trauma and child and adolescent development?

"Through the NGO we have a thrust to train people so we can get the message out there.”