CRM Trainings for VPHCS staff and community health workers in Bantayan conducted

As part of the ongoing project of the Visayas Primary Health Care Services, Inc. (VPHCS) to provide mental health services to families affected by Typhoon Yolanda in the northern part of Cebu, trainings on community resiliency model (CRM) were recently conducted for the VPHCS staff and community health workers in the affected areas in Bantayan. 

The project, Integrating Community Resiliency Model (CRM) in Community-based Health Program (CBHP) in ten villages in northern Cebu affected by Typhoon Yolanda is funded by the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC), a human rights organization based in Massachusettes, U.S.A. and working in more than a dozen countries worldwide. 

The six-month project which started in October 2014, addresses the mental health in the ten communities through application of the CRM so that the residents can help themselves and help others as well. 

Trainings on CRM for the VPHCS staff were conducted on October 17 – 19, Nov. 8 -9, 2014, in the Institute of Religion and Culture, Cebu City. Resource persons included three nurses trained on CRM and members of the Philippine Association of Community Resiliency Model Trainers (PhilACTs), Edgar Gahisan, Lord Sidney Relon and Irish Grace Ramirez, and UUSC consultant Rainera Lucero. 

Community Resilience Model (CRM) trained nurse 

Lord Sidney Relon facilitates a workshop 

on CRM with VPHCS staff.

VPHCS staff Juliet Abing presents her body map 

as part of developing the skill of resourcing.

A workshop during the CRM training. 

UUSC project consultant Rainera Lucero (standing) 

adds some inputs during a workshop.

CRM trained nurse Edgar Gahisan talks 

on the different skills in CRM.

The trainers then gave community-based trainings on CRM to community health workers of the ten barangays. The first trainings were held in Patao in Bantayan on Nov. 29 – Dec. 1, and Kampinganon in Bantayan, and San Agustin in Madridejos on Dec. 2 – 4.

Ten CHWs in each barangay attended the trainings which were conducted by Irish Grace Ramirez, Pearl Templado, Tardy Guardiario, and Lucila Carrreon of the VPHCS. 

Community health workers in Barangay Patao, Bantayan.

Community health workers in Barangays Kampinganon 

and San Agustin, Bantayan Dec. 2-4, 2014

Participants during a training on Community Resiliency Model 

in Bantayan on Nov. 29 - Dec. 1.

 VPHCS nurse Pearl Templado explains about CRM skills.

VPHCS nurse Tardy Guardiario talks about CRM skills.

“Community Resiliency Model (CRM) of the Trauma Resource Institute embodies a community-oriented approach that promotes independence, education about the biology of the human body and how it responds to traumatic events and most importantly, how to restore or enhance resiliency. It trains community members to not only help themselves but to help others within their wider social network. CRM aims to “make the skills a part of healing in daily life, to increase a sense of one’s ability to help him/herself, to learn how to bring the body, mind and spirit into greater balance and to encourage people to pass the skills along to friends and loved ones.”

“The primary focus of this skills-based, stabilization program is to re-set the natural balance of the nervous system. CRM skills help individuals understand their nervous system and learn to track sensations connected to their own well-being, which CRM calls the “Resilient Zone”. CRM’s goal is to help to create “trauma-informed” and “resiliency-informed” communities that share a common understanding of the impact of trauma and chronic stress on the nervous system and how resiliency can be restored or increased using this skills-based approach. 

“CRM has largely been used with individuals and communities, which have been marginalized either by economic challenges, ethnicity or specific events. Applying CRM proactively with an entire community or neighborhood that is chronically stressed can alleviate the symptoms of chronic stress placing the community and its members in a better position to change their situation by increasing their resiliency.” 

In the trainings of the community health workers, the participants said that Community Resiliency Model helped them in recovering themselves from the Yolanda experience, making them able to control themselves when they are out of their resilient zone.

Other communities in future trainings to be conducted include Barangay Lipayran, Municipality of Bantayan, Barangays Baterya, Malbago and Tominhao in the Municipality of Daanbantayan, Barangay North Poblacion, Municipality of San Francisco, Barangay Cagcagan, Municipality of Puro and Barangay Puertobello, Municipality of Tudela.

Project on Community Resiliency Model

The Visayas Primary Health Care Services, Inc. (VPHCS) is currently implementing a project that benefits families affected by Typhoon Yolanda in the northern part of Cebu.

The project, Integrating Community Resiliency Model (CRM) in Community-based Health Program (CBHP) in ten villages in northern Cebu affected by Typhoon Yolanda is funded by the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC), a human rights organization based in Massachusettes, U.S.A. and working in more than a dozen countries worldwide. UUSC fosters social justice and advances human rights, partnering with those who confront unjust power structures and mobilizing to challenge oppressive policies.

The six-month project which starts in October 2014, addresses the mental health in the ten communities through application of the Community Resiliency Model (CRM) so that the residents can help themselves and help others as well. 

The ten communities include Barangays Patao, Lipayran and Kampinganon, Municipality of Bantayan, Barangay San Augustin, Municipality of Madridejos, Barangays Baterya, Malbago and Tominhao in the Municipality of Daanbantayan, Barangay North Poblacion, Municipality of San Francisco, Barangay Cagcagan, Municipality of Puro and Barangay Puertobello, Municipality of Tudela.

CRM embodies a community-oriented approach that promotes independence, education about the biology of the human body and how it responds to traumatic events and most importantly, how to restore or enhance resiliency. CRM aims to “make the skills a part of healing in daily life, to increase a sense of one’s ability to help him/herself, to learn how to bring the body, mind and spirit into greater balance and to encourage people to pass the skills along to friends and loved ones.”

The ten barangays are all coastal communities where residents are poor fisherfolks and small farmers whose houses were severely damaged by Typhoon Yolanda and their means of livelihood were totally lost. Even before Yolanda struck, the residents were already wallowing in poverty and facing dire hardships to eke a living to feed their families. Yolanda aggravated their sufferings. 

The ten barangays are among the 20 barangays which were served by the VPHCS during a previous project from February 2014 – April 2014, “Building resilient Communities in facing natural calamities – Phase I,” implemented by the Central Visayas Farmers Development Center (FARDEC) with the support of the Action Aid. The VPHCS provided psychosocial services to survivors of the typhoon, as part of the relief, shelter, livelihood and rehabilitation services in the project. It also organized people’s organizations including formation of working committees on disaster preparedness. 

In the ten barangays are residents who showed signs of mental stress and psychosocial trauma that needed to have continued psychosocial intervention. 

The project shall provide trainings of community health workers in the ten communities that shall enable them to have basic CRM skills to help their residents return back to resiliency, recover from any trauma and promote their mental health. 

It aims to develop “trauma-informed” and “resiliency-informed” communities in the ten barangays where residents share a common understanding of the impact of trauma on the nervous system and how resiliency can be restored using this skills-based approach. 

Prior to the community-based trainings, the VPHCS staff members and volunteers shall also undergo trainings on CRM, who shall then train the community health workers and apply their skills in the course of providing primary health care services in the programs of the VPHCS.