The Guyana Foundation will be launching the first in a series of suicide prevention training workshops to tackle the high rate of death by suicide in Guyana.
According to a press release from the organisation, the six-day workshop, which will begin on October 12, 2015, will equip a key group of volunteers with the prerequisite skills to manage “first-response mental health interventions” across the country in schools and communities. The participants will also be trained to manage the problems of poverty, rape and domestic abuse, which are seen as contributing factors to suicides.
According to Supriya Singh-Bodden, founder of the Guyana Foundation, the organisation will soon be delivering a comprehensive national mental health and suicide prevention strategy to the administration.
Among its recommendations, the group is calling for the repealing of the archaic 1930s mental health law and replacing it with more contemporary legislation. The proposal will be created by a team of qualified mental health professionals and informed by analyses commissioned by the Foundation in co-operation with academics from Maastricht University, Netherlands and York University, Canada.
The first workshop will be steered by Dr. Latchman Narain, a mental health professional who is a registered member of the Ontario Association of Consultants, Counsellors, Psychometrics and Psychotherapists (OACCPP), the holder of a Masters and Doctorate degree in Counselling and operates the Anger Management Centre of Toronto, Inc. The second series of workshops in December will be led by Lauren Johnson, an internationally-recognised psychotherapist. She is the holder of three Master Degrees in Counselling Psychology and specialises in Experiential, Transpersonal and Creative Expression Healing methods.
