The Malaysian Insight

A GROUP of youth has taken it upon themselves to start a subsidised mental health therapy programme to help the low-income group.

Persatuan Bantuan Kesihatan Mental (Nyawa), which was set up in May last year, has a team of 18 young people below the age of 30 from diverse ethnic, professional and academic backgrounds.

Its mental health programme, known as Inisiatif Menyantuni, started out as an ad hoc programme to provide free counselling to flood victims but has branched out to lower income groups.

“Nyawa began with the intention to bridge the gap between youthful enthusiasm and seasoned wisdom to bring about mental health reforms that are not only progressive and bold but also feasible and sustainable,” Farihin Ufiya, director of the organisation said.

“This initiative began as an ad hoc project during the 2021-2022 flood problem to provide free counselling services to victims who faced mental health challenges.

“However, we received many distressing requests from non-flood victims who could not afford therapy.

“This initiative was subsequently extended to the B40 community with the idea of offering subsidised therapy sessions to those facing life and livelihood challenges.”

Farihin said the organisation decided to focus on the B40 group for Inisiatif Menyantuni 2.0 and Inisiatif 3.0, the current one, because of the limited access to affordable mental health services available to them.

According to the Health Ministry, mental illness is one of the leading causes of disability and health loss in Malaysia, accounting for 8.6% of total disability-adjusted life-years.

In terms of economic costs, according to Relate Malaysia, by 2018, mental health-related economic losses were estimated at RM14.46 billion (or more than 1% of national GDP).

“We decided to focus on the B40 community because the association between economic inequality and poor mental health is well established.

“Despite this being a well-established association, there is still limited access to affordable mental health services by the B40 community,” Farihin said.

She said 219 people have signed up for Inisiatif Menyantuni 2.0.

They will be given four sessions each and are charged a token RM5 for each session.

All sessions will be conducted online for logistical purposes and to allow those outside the Klang Valley access, Farihin said.

They will go through a screening process where they are asked to provide a copy of their identity card and proof of income, she said.

Once they qualify for the subsidised programme, they will go through an initial psychological assessment.

The majority of the clients are women, with only 9.3% male clients, and are between the ages of 19 and 37, with a mean age of 24.

The slots were all filled within 48 hours, Farihin said.

The most common psychological conditions are anxiety and depression while the most common issues are work-related stress and family or relationship conflicts.

“The clients will be allocated to either a professional clinical psychologist, counsellor, trainee clinical psychologists or trainee counsellor based on their psychological needs,” said Farihin.

“They will receive a unique ID and a link to the therapist booking page, where they may choose their therapist based on their preferred language, key areas and availability.”

Nyawa has 45 therapists who have volunteered for Inisiatif Menyantuni currently.

“They are either professional clinical psychologists, counsellors or trainee clinical psychologists and counsellors.”

In the long run, the organisation hopes to set up an integrated network to help more people.

“We are continuously improving the administrative and technical aspects of Inisiatif Menyantuni to serve as many clients as efficiently as we can,” said Farihin.

“In the near future, we hope to establish an integrated system that improves low-income groups’ access to a variety of mental health services, including psychological first aid and diagnostic assessments.”

To do this, Nyawa is hoping to work with the Health Ministry and other civil society groups, she said. – August 14, 2022.