Cope Counselling helps people to cope

Domestic violence, trauma and undiagnosed mental illnesses are just a few of the gaps Micah Dell, a clinical social worker and psychotherapist, has seen in TT’s mental health system. And those gaps motivated her to start a private practice called Cope Counselling Services.

However, as of October 1, Cope Counselling was transformed into an NGO with the hopes of filling those gaps on a national level by providing mental health services to those who cannot afford it.

Dell told Sunday Newsday that mental health in TT was unique.

“Trinidad is different from anywhere else I’ve ever seen. For example, around the world the main cause of suicide is depression. In Trinidad, the main cause of suicide is domestic violence, and by the perpetrator.”

She said suicide was most prevalent in, but not exclusive to, the East Indian population in situations where the men were financially, emotionally, physically, and otherwise abusive towards women. Many times they murdered the women and then took their own lives, giving TT the third highest suicide rate in the region.

Based on research, she said there needed to be focus on East Indian men in terms of suicidal ideation. It was also important to target perpetrators of domestic violence to find out why they abuse and what was necessary for them to stop. The victims also needed help to recover from that trauma.

Focus on TT’s youth was also important. She said it was necessary to find out what made young boys gravitate to crime and violence in at-risk communities. Girls needed to focus on self-love, confidence, and identity issues. While both had to tackle addiction.

“There is also an underlying substance misuse of alcohol that nobody talks about. I don’t know what the actual number is, but I would say that 75 per cent of the country’s population are functioning alcoholics. We need to have a conversation about, is it just an after-work lime or are we drinking away our issues? Are you using alcohol as a means to cope with your mental health issues rather than using something healthier than a substance?”

She recognised that the use of alcohol was a cultural issue but she questioned when drinking was just for fun or whether people were drinking away their problems without realising it.

When she returned to Trinidad from Canada, where she lived for many years, in 2018, Dell was already working with the Children’s Authority where she managed a group home for over a year.

“It gave me the opportunity to experience social services in Trinidad but it also opened up my eyes to the gaps in services. And one of the gaps I saw was mental health. There are a lot of gaps in terms of the needs, speaking to the people, finding out what the themes are, what the issues are, what is leading to those issues, what are the different cultural nuances that are creating these particular mental health issues.”

Some of the issues she noticed were trauma related to sexual abuse, natural disasters and barrel children, that is, children of parents who left the country to work and sent barrels of items, such as clothes and foodstuff, to their families in TT.

She decided to go into private practice but many people did not have the money to access her services. She would often refer them to community mental health centres but there were several problems that deterred clients.

They complained that there was no privacy, long wait-times, the environment made them feel uncomfortable, and they would often be prescribed medication without proper clinical counselling.

She speculated that the possible reasons for that could be the large number of people visiting the clinics, the staff’s workload, doctors being more focused on their private practices and a lack of funding.

Therefore, in March Cope Counselling directors decided to change to a non-profit organisation to provide mental health services to communities where people would not usually have resources to access those types of services.

With the motto Ending Stigma, Changing Lives; their focus was on mental health education, awareness to end stigma and providing services. The services covered mild to moderate issues, such as depression and anxiety to severe illnesses like bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and personality disorders.

She said education and awareness were necessary because many people did not want to seek help because they were embarrassed or because others would think they were crazy. That was one reason why, she said, people had to be mindful of their language.

Cope Counselling already provides employment assistance, including mental health training and counselling, to several organisations. But soon, it will be offering specific programmes to the community including trauma, grief, anxiety, depression, and suicide ideation programmes for specific groups.

She said because of covid19, she has seen a “crazy” spike in anxiety with people who had never had one before, getting panic attacks, and they do not know what to do about it.

Because the organisation is already located in Woodbrook and resources are limited, programmes will begin by servicing the central Port of Spain area. However, once it has access to additional resources and spaces, the intention is to branch off to more parts of the country, and possibly start hiring staff.

When the programme details are finalised, social media and its website will be used to invite people to register for services to be held at youth facilities and community centres. The hope is to start the first programme this month.