In general sense, mental health, is expressed as a state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or her own potential, can handle the normal stresses of life, can work productively and is able to make an impact to his or her community effectively. KDU is unique as a higher education provider, as it is the only state university, which, cater the educational and service demands of the armed forces police and the civilians as well as the students coming from abroad.
This create a unique situation where stress levels and the psychological wellbeing of the students and staff to be looked after very carefully.
In this context and also inline with many local and international universities, it propose to setup a helpline for KDU students and the staff to improve the accessibility of mental healthcare, which is essential in improving mental and social wellbeing. In a nutshell helplines will be available to corporate, individuals, and those directly affected and their families who desire an opportunity to address their needs to the helpline staff.
Helpline can be used as first contact and are easily accessible and usually in close vicinity to the population via a mobile or a landline or via Internet. When compared to the conventional methods helplines are more cost effective way of providing information, advice, referral and help. They will provide an interactive service to callers and they are actively listened by someone with a professional understanding of their situation. Most importantly addresses the issues of stigma. If carefully operated, helplines offer a safe and easy first contact with sources of information and with the treatment.
Trained consenting counselors from KDU staff will be enrolled through advertisements. They will be briefed about helpline setup and execution by a group comprised of clinical psychologists and psychiatrists from the department of psychiatry FOM KDU through knowledge sharing workshops. Counselors will be assigned on an on call roster and they will be provided with mobile phone.
Paper based and electronic records mechanism will be adopted to maintain accountability and effective management of the clients.
IT support will be provided through the IT support center and to be created a webpage to provide necessary information and links to the helpline. Mobile phones (2 for the KDU main premises and 2 for the UHKDU and FAHS; n=4) and notepads to be handed to the counselors on call roster are expected to be acquired through KDU.
