News from iThemba

This year started at a frenetic pace for iThemba. With the support of and partnership with a number of partners and sponsors, we have started growing from being a local centre in the city of Benoni to a regional, if not provincial centre in Gauteng.

As detailed in the report below, we have not only increased our capacity for forensic nursing to a total of three forensic nurses but have steadily recruited volunteers and have some passionate and very talented psychology students interning at iThemba whilst being trained by iThemba in trauma support. This in itself contributes to iThemba developing people in the field of traumatic stress and lends itself to a culture of learning within the organization of iThemba.

I have also had the opportunity to work closely with the local police crime prevention unit on a more operational level (meaning I get to wear a bulletproof and race around with blue lights...!) allowing me to gain a more experiential insight into the stressors that our police officers face. Hopefully this experience will enable my training team to develop a programme that will assist the police on a local level to manage their stress more effectively. I must be honest that I myself have experienced an increased level of stress during this period and even needed time off: this leads one to appreciate even more the challenges faced by our police officers who are full time in this line of work. Just last week, iThemba was fortunate to provide training to a number of the SAPS DCT North Rand trainers as well as five other psychology students.

I believe that iThemba is steadily growing into an organization that will contribute to the reconciliation and renewal of our society through our work the field of traumatic stress and the trauma support and hope offered to both individual victims of crime and communities affected by violence. The partnership iThemba has with its sponsors will truly change the lives of such victims and communities.

Thank you Friends of IThemba.

Regards

Philip Stoneman

Update on iThemba’s Progress January – April 2010      (Michelle Bellion)

The centre was inundated with cases in January 2010 (see stats), since then a definite increase has been experienced since the same period in 2009. This could be due to an Awareness Campaign run at the various police stations.

VICTIM EMPOWERMENT CENTRES

Life Line and iThemba have been approached by the Gauteng Safety and Security MEC to run the Victim Empowerment Centres on the East Rand. VEC’s have become an integral part of police stations and iThemba will be supervising 13 locally based centres. The aim is to educate and assist the public with regard to trauma and rape, to encourage improved service delivery and community building between the police and the public and to effectively support survivors of serious crime so building a sense of trust between them and the SAPS. IThemba objective is to not only support the survivors of trauma and serious violent crime through awareness and education but also to become involved with advocacy of the medico legal aspects of rape by re- training the members of the SAPS. Part of this is to establish trusting relationships whereby iThemba will offer informal counselling services to those SAPS members most in need. All VEC volunteers are to be thoroughly trained in trauma, counselling skills and HIV awareness.

HELP LINE 0861 HOPE 4 U: 0861 467 348

The Help Line has been installed and through the article in the Caxton’s People Magazine we have received calls as far away as East London, the potential of this Help Line is enormous. A comprehensive resources list is currently being collated and the call protocols and practices are being drawn up. IThemba would like to officially launch the Help Line over the 16 Days of Activism period (November 25 – December 10, 2010.).

SUPPORT GROUPS

iThemba has identified a need to reach survivors of rape & trauma in our local townships. Often after rape the survivor is not able to return to the centre for follow-up counselling due to financial constraints. We will be holding training sessions - end of May - for volunteers from the surrounding townships to assist with the trauma, counselling and HIV of these survivors. Our aim is to make initial contact by way of a house call and then subsequent follow ups to be done at their local VEC in the township where Groups will not only be counselled and be given education but also be supervised by a B.Psych. Intern, thereby we ensure that the survivor receives complete holistic therapeutic support to the point of recovery and re-integration into their community.

TRAUMA WRITTEN ENQUIRY ASSISTANCE

Through our local news paper we have asked the public to send us their questions on trauma. We have our local Psych students standing by to research and personally respond to the incoming mail. The most newsworthy letters will be published with their responses.