It is around 4 p.m. and Sarah Daniel is staring across an empty room at the vocational unit of Schizophrenia Research Foundation (SCARF) in Anna Nagar. Over the phone, Sarah informs she is all alone except for a worker cleaning the room. Only thirty minutes earlier, the room was a beehive of activity, packed with people.

“We had close to 40 people at the centre today, taking up different activities,” says Sarah, an occupational therapist. That is the usual number, between 10 a.m. and 3.30 p.m., when the vocational unit functions.

In an “earlier era”, the floor would be even more crowded — hosting twice the current number of people — and there would hardly be any elbow room for anyone.

Sarah notes that following the breaks caused by the pandemic, the numbers thinned and never got back to their original girth.

The unit hosts various categories of people needing help: Colouring is all the therapy some people would require; some others would need to engage in a form of focussed work; and there are those who need acute care and require more intense occupational therapy.

The unit turns out a variety of products, which include items made for the staff and patients.

“Every month, more than 100 files, 4000 patient ID cards and 4000 medicine covers are rolled out of this place,” says Sarah. Besides these, a variety of utility items are fashioned. An areca leaf plate unit and a screen printing unit also functions along the same lines.

“We look at everything from a viewpoint of therapy. If we do not find any difference in a patient’s behaviour, then we conclude that a wrong activity has been chosen for them,” says Sarah.

Besides the unit at Anna Nagar, SCARF runs two residential centres at Mahabalipuram and Thiruverkadu where paper bag making forms a major chunk of the activity.

“The products are sold to outsiders mainly by word of mouth,” says Sarah.

R Padmavati, director, SCARF, notes the focus of the vocational unit widened during the pandemic. “We do not just make and sell paper bags but take a patient-centric approach to it,” says Dr Padmavati.

“We have moved from vocational rehabilitation to an approach that combines occupational therapy and rehabilitation,” she says. “For instance, a 37-year-old patient’s family would also want him to be an income generator. So, we send him to the vocational centre where the occupational therapist will assess various factors including attention span, concentration, the ability to learn new things and take initiatives,” says Dr Padmavati.

“If a person is poor with inter-personal skills then the occupational therapists will intervene and they will be enabled to interact with other people. The therapist will also some have deliverables for them. The goal is to make the person more functional even if they stop coming to the centre,” she says.

Padmavati reveals they have plans to start a vocational facility outside the premises of SCARF so that more people can access it.

To shop for products made at the vocational unit, call them at 044-2615 1073/2615 3971

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Printable version | Jul 23, 2022 10:40:52 pm | https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/a-peek-into-scarfs-vocational-unit/article65646900.ece