Scale
The process of growth of Sambandh has been very organic since 2011, the year of its inception.
As caregivers we had seen that the needs of a person with mental illness are ever changing and that recovery is not a linear path. We started with the vision of creating a comprehensive, continuous and easily accessible Recovery Model to cater to the needs of the Indian population.
We started with a handful of families coming together and in a short period we have supported about 500 families and their loved ones with mental illness, with different levels of support as per their needs.
The model organically grew with family self-help groups. Depending on the needs they expressed, we started Recovery services – The Community Integration Cnetre (CIC) for their loved ones with mental illness in partnership with the Haryana Government.
We realized that the Recovery Programme was not accessible to the local populations around Gurgaon due to the distance and lack of availability of local transport. The village project was started with a pilot in late 2016, taking the programmes to the local people. This being successful we have now gone to 4 villages, one after the other, around Gurgaon.
The Group Home was started 8 months back for people who are in recovery, to cater to their need of independent living in the community with ‘least restrictive’ (in the spirit of the UNCRPD) living facility and flexible supports along with recovery planning. There is need for many more.
The CIC is a Central Hub from where all the programmes extend into the community.
We are in the process of developing:
- A tool kit for the Village Project
- A tool kit of the Group Home project
- Training and certification
- Specific target-oriented material for Awareness
- Advocacy at all level
All of our work is completely scalable.
Beginning from a few individuals with mental illness at the beginning, we have now engaged with some 500 families and persons with mental illness, made possible through a gradual and then swift augmentation in resources, both of physical space and a highly-skilled team.
Sambandh’s core is the virtual (and physical) Community Integration Centre (CIC), which includes the daily Recovery programme, the Outreach programme, the Family Self-Help Group and many Awareness and Leisure activities. All of which have grown.
A major new step was the Village Mental Health Programme, whereby Sambandh’s work was carried through to the people living in a village in Gurgaon. A few months later, the programme began in a second village, followed soon by another. And today the work goes on in four villages, based on the same model and learning from earlier villages.
It is thus a certainty that the CIC activities will be scaled-up further.
Sustainability:
The true test for any social sector project like Sambandh lies in its sustainability. And there are various reasons and ways by which this is sought to be ensured.
- Induction of new trustees in an Executive capacity.
- Recruitment of skilled persons at various levels and with competitive remunerations in the sector.
- Large body of persons with mental illness and families who are engaged with us.
- Association with CSR funders, corporate and institutional donors, and large, individual contributors.
- Process of institutional of donations and the building-up of a corpus.
- Association with the Government of Haryana for location and space.
- Sambandh Recovery Model is based on latest research and is in compliance with the new and progressive Mental Health Policy 2014 and Mental Health Care Act 2017.
- We focus on ‘least restrictive’ services, promoting respect and dignity of people with mental illness and their families.