ISLAMABAD: The Peshawar incident has not only traumatised children who survived the massacre but their families and other children as well.

The Ministry of National Health Services (NHS) has prepared counselling sessions on “post traumatic stress management” for the children who survived the attack.

In the second phase, the facility will be offered to students of other schools of the country.

According to an official statement, sessions will be held with students, their families and teachers, which would help them recover from the shock.

After coordination with key stakeholders, the National Health Services ministry has notified a committee comprising members from mental health and non-communicable disease coordination cell of the ministry, Army Medical Crops, psychiatrists from Islamabad and Peshawar, WHO collaborating centre and Unicef.

Country-wide sessions will help mitigate their shock

The committee held an emergency meeting with an objective to preparing a counselling sessions plan.

Moreover, information, education and communication (IEC) material, messages, modules on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder would be made available for public.

Another objective of the committee is to develop strategy to mitigate effects of the incident through media.

It was decided that the required plan would be finalised by the ministry by Monday morning in consultation with Prof Dr Farid Minhas of WHO collaborating centre and Prof Rizwan Taj of Pims, while Unicef would be providing relevant support.

Dr Assad Hafeez, the executive director, Health Services Academy, while talking to Dawn said all students of the country had been affected by the unfortunate incident.

“The army team which has been carrying out rehabilitation activities in Army Public School, Peshawar, contacted the NHS ministry and sought counselling facility for the traumatised children and families,” he said.

“We still have experts who did post-trauma counselling of the survivors of 2005 earthquake in Azad Kashmir, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and other areas of the country,” he said.

Dr Assad Hafeez said: “The ministry has decided to form a committee which in the first phase will provide counselling to survivors of Army Public School Peshawar. In the second phase, the committee members will provide counselling to other children,” he said.

“At the moment students are scared of going to school,” he said.

Psychiatrists will counsel the children in groups and provide supporting material to their parents which will help them and their children recover from the trauma,” he said.

Dr Hafeez further said: “It is a very sensitive issue and the counselling will work like medicine.”

“Although some non-governmental organisations have started providing counselling to children but they cannot do it on such a largescale.

“I believe that WHO and Unicef would play an important role in this regard,” he said.

Published in Dawn, December 21st, 2014