Do you often feel that the numerous promotional materials and brochures beside hospitals, clinics and community resource centers are like books without words, which you can read but not understand? Fountain Community and Family Support Center of Eden Foundation has been working with family members caring for the service users of psychiatry for a long time, and we have found that most of the caregivers and service users often do not know what to do when they are faced with the onset of illness for the “very first time”. Where are the resources and how to cope? This becomes the most worrying issue for the caregivers. Therefore, Eden launched a foldable flyer making program, hoping that through words and images, we can catch the families who have member with psycho-social disabilities in the first place and become their driftwood.
Eden Fountain Community and Family Support Center launched a foldable flyer, hoping to be the first line to meet the needs of families who have member with Psycho-social Disabilities.
Unlike most of the flyers that are designed by professional workers who judge the needs based on their experience and perspectives, this foldable flyer was created through a joint discussion among 13 family volunteers from the conception, to the collation of the contents, the design and presentation, and even the channel of distribution. In the morning on 28th of December, the “Standing on the Side of Suffering” foldable flyer launch seminar was organized to invite the workers and family volunteers who have been involved in the program to share their own thoughts and feelings.
Unlike the previous flyer, this one was completed by the family members and the workers together to collation the knowledge of fight experience with psychiatry illness, hoping to become a support for the families who have member with psycho-social disabilities.
The representative of the family, Ah-Chiao, shared that the idea of making the foldable flyer was to realize that compared to other illnesses where it is easy to find information on health education, there is no easy-to-read information for people with psychiatry illnesses, which can let the families know what to do next in addition to the symptoms of the illness and medical treatment. For example: Who can talk to while suffering? How to talk with the doctor at the clinic? What to do if the one who are reluctant to take medication? These seem to be basic, but those are the most important and personal issues for the families and service users.
Another volunteer, Pao-Hua, said that “how to live” is the most important concern. Because of the lack of understanding of psychiatry illness in society, many people are not aware of the precursor signs of psychiatry illness. Presenting the “symptoms” of psychiatry illness in words can let people know clearly that they need to seek professional help when they encounter such conditions. In addition, the use of words is also a major consideration. she said that most contents of the foldable flyer were written in everyday language, hoping that simple language could connect people's heartfelt feelings with their current situation, and was also more relevant to their actual needs.
Family volunteers who participated in the foldable flyer launch seminar shared the original intention of making the flyer and hoped to support more caregivers with the same experience.
Ms. Hsiu-Wen Liu, a worker from Fountain Community and Family Support Center of Eden Foundation who also participated in the program, said that the foldable flyer was finalized in October this year after two years of communications with family members, collecting feedback from various parties, and making constant corrections and word-by-word adjustments. Eden has positioned this information as a “ringing doorbell” in the hope that it will guide families to find a partner to discuss with, and take care of the tensions and struggles in their hearts.
The foldable flyer, titled as “An Initial Response Guide for Friends and Family,” opens to a list of suspected states of mental distress, as well as information on counseling and testing in the “What to Do” section. On the back side, there is a list of specific suggestions for caregiver when the one is reluctant to seek medical attention or is unsure of how to communicate with a doctor. On the side, there are resources other than medication and counseling for the recovery process, such as day rehabilitation, employment and family support resources, etc., so that family members can have more diversified directions to refer to.
Eden established the Psychiatry Illness Caregiver Hotline in 2015 with the concept of peer support, with family members of caregivers serving as volunteers and answering phone calls, and has since developed advocacy and education initiatives, such as organizing family growth groups, book clubs, and regular monthly lectures, as well as publishing graphic books on family members' stories, and conducting Q&As for caregivers, in the hope of changing the dilemmas of people with psycho-social disabilities in the community and changing the social atmosphere at the same time. We hope that the publication of this foldable flyer will help to meet the needs of families in need through our fight experience for them. If you would like to receive a copy of the foldable flyer, please fill out the request form or send a private message to our Facebook fan page: “popularcrazy”. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at +886-2-8712-7717.
