The crisis doesn't look at age. How the Łódź “Post” Association helps people in a intellectual crisis

Mariusz Kołodziejski, Vice president of the Board of the “Pomost” Association, we are talking about supporting children and young people and their families in their recovery from the crisis and about volunteering, which becomes an effective form of therapy.

What is the intellectual state of Polish society?

Mariusz Kołodziejski: I do not know the statistics, but after the pandemic, events that take place in Poland and in the world, there is indeed a large crisis.

We're moving a clinic, so we can see that the patient's profile has changed. There were children who hadn't come to us yet. Seniors who stayed at home besides request care.

Those who come to us for aid are complaining of fatigue, overstimulation. Now there is simply a tendency to take care of well-being and people, alternatively of looking constructively and a small more practically at any spheres of life, they are even more isolated and withdrawn from activity due to the fact that they hear that 1 needs to take care of 1 another, so they do not go outside. This further exacerbates their difficulties and intellectual crises.

Our employees besides respect their condition as difficult.

You mentioned that people are afraid of confronting what brings life. And life will always be hard for us. I feel like we're treating them like an ad movie, but nobody takes into account that reality looks a small different.

We want everything to be perfect so that we can be healthy, have an organized household and professional life. But problems are, you gotta face them and solve them.

Some ideas have emerged to deal with anxiety, problems, specified as support groups and various workshops. These are good solutions, but only for a while or as a supplement.

Many, on the another hand, have given in besides much to the trend of caring for well-being and withdrawing from activity, and live only to get out of the crisis.

Many of our employees besides gave up on it, and it was hard for them to return to activity [after the pandemic – ed.]. It took me 4 years to get the squad back together.

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In fact, there were no more problems than before, but we learned that we could say that there was besides much. As a result, alternatively of dealing with them, we retreat, reasoning that this is how we care about welfare or the household sphere. We began to thin besides much inwardly, alternatively of looking for applicable solutions that would aid us through these crises.

What problems do children have?

The children are isolated, having difficulty making contacts. They were drawn into technology.They had access to it before, but now it's gotten worse. They can't talk to each other, they don't meet each other.

→ Digital childhood – hard adulthood. What consequences will future generations face? •Marta Korendo

Many of them did not cope with the challenges after returning to school [after the pandemic period – ed.]. For any it was a period of major changes, specified as the transition from simple to advanced school. As a consequence of life online, the period erstwhile we meet, erstwhile we mature, was cut off, we have no 1 to talk to about it.

Not everything can be arranged through zoom or chat.

We request a healthy relationship. The school is an environment that integrates, but for many young people these communicators are the main form of human contact. It truly affected their intellectual wellness and hence more diseases, suicide attempts, self-inflicted.

And how do you work with your parents?

We don't have extended therapy and cooperation with families, due to the fact that adults come to us. On the another hand, if a insignificant comes to the clinic, we arrange separate meetings with the kid and separate meetings with the parent, there are besides joint discussions. The therapists care about giving parents guidance on how to handle their kid or where to look for help.

The clinic provides ad hoc and emergency assistance, which cannot end erstwhile the patient leaves the centre. Children return home, to school, meet with a teacher, participate in environmental therapy. But drugs, psychologists or psychotherapists aren't everything. This should be comprehensive. And for parents, it's new, and they're just learning it, too. So parent education is important.

Children and young people communicate on the net all the time and come across hate. Do you think it affects their intellectual health?

It's strong.

This hatred may appear no substance what happens, but it may be a separate phenomenon or a situation of ostracism, erstwhile it is revealed that individual is being assisted by a specialist. Young people frequently learn from the Internet, uncritically accept information that is unverified, self-diagnoses and organises their own treatment.

→ Mental wellness on Instagram. Do we have anything to fear? •Veronika Mańczak

So the specialist's aid is inactive under assessment?

It's different. There's quite a few talk about it, and young people are very educated, but that doesn't change the fact that utilizing a specialist's support can be an excuse to laughter at someone. I don't think this aid is as negative as it was 10 years ago.

On the another hand, a psychiatrist is inactive confused with a scientist and a psychotherapist. For some, it's the same thing.

And the biggest threat is to usage only information found online or from unskilled people.

It could be dangerous. Self-help groups are formed, or young people are talking about their problems and looking for different solutions or sharing information about what drugs they take, what drugs they use, and what not to take. These are the utmost situations that start with what happens at home, surrounded, in the world.

Because pandemic is just an impulse, but the problem is deeper.

And here, in the clinic, people find themselves, for whom pandemic, war or social anxiety is an inflammatory element, due to the fact that if individual has arranged at home or in the environment, the hazard that this will origin any kind of intellectual crisis is smaller, due to the fact that specified a individual knows who to turn to.

For more than 20 years, the “Post” has been working for people with intellectual illness and their families. Are these people more aware and willing to come to you?

Yeah, people are more aware, they're not ashamed or they know something needs to be done. As the “Pomost” was created in 2000, it was 1 of the first organizations to deal with people who leave the hospital. present we have a lot more centers of this kind.

At the time, there was no thought how to aid young people who left the hospital, not go back to school, to college, to work. Now we have NGOs working in this area, counseling, clubs, so intellectual and psychiatric assistance is much more. On the another hand, those who come here definitely know why they do it. They're more open.

When I first started, it was a fistful of people who already had their stories, were hospitalized respective times and had to go somewhere. But they did not always come by themselves, but alternatively the doctor or parent directed them. Now people come due to the fact that they have access to information.

→ When the baby's sick. intellectual support in paediatric oncology •Violet Pawlik-Nowacka

Has the Association implemented projects to rise public awareness of intellectual wellness and how much interest was there? Who applied for specified projects?

We usually organized educational and preventive events in October as part of the Day of intellectual Health. We have collaborated with different partners – schools, companies and have benefited from various groups, depending on the form in which we organized the event. These were frequently free consultations, for example, part of the "Post", part in public places, and there were large queues.

Parents with children came, people from the street came, people who had signed up early and wanted to see a peculiar specialist. These events were very interesting.

Every year we effort to make them a small different, so that this education is carried out and fresh groups learn not only about our offer of help, but besides about how to take care of intellectual wellness and where to look for help.

Now there is simply quite a few talk in the media about the intellectual wellness of children and adults. Do you think any things are left out? Are you pleased that the media has yet taken care of this subject?

Yes, I am pleased that the media took care of this subject, due to the fact that in Poland we act actively, we only respond as the problem is.

Someone noticed that there was a mass problem with the children and it was then that the media started honking about it.

On the another hand, it would be good for specialists to talk in these cases, not just individual from tv or tv foundations. quite a few celebrities are starting to talk about it. They're based on their intuition, their experience. But in the media, we request more coverage of organizations that do this all day.

We were on various breakfast shows where we could share our knowledge. There is more and more news in the media about intellectual health, most of it is cognition that is substantively proven, statistic are shown, so I think it is simply a reference.

People should besides talk after the crisis. There's quite a few podcasts on the Internet. Is that information verified? I don't know. There should be a comment from a specialist, an authority from an organization or representing a network of patients or doctors who will strengthen this information.

With a large number of specialists – doctors, therapists – you cooperate in your clinic?

In all subunit we run, there's a manager and a staff of specialists. They are known to be specialised in long-term and individual or group therapy.

In open centres are specialists who conduct workshops, open. We have a shrink, a psychotherapist, a counselor, a psychologist. We have wellness assistants, that is, people after the intellectual crisis, who now support others with their experience.

Are your actions subsidised by the NFZ?

We utilized to be hooked up to NFZ, at this point it's strictly commercial activity. There are many difficulties and limitations and it is easier for us to organise this aid without NFZ.

However, there is no comprehensiveness and no support network.

There's a fight over a patient. We sometimes find it hard to get fresh ones, due to the fact that even if individual wants to come, they are stopped by another institution that is besides fighting for this patient, due to the fact that they are either subsidised or paying for themselves, so they do not want him to leave. It's a small unhealthy competition. The patient became a customer.

I ask due to the fact that all now and then you hear about the liquidation of hospitals and relief centers. How does the treatment sector of our intellectual deficits work in specified an institutionalised form, where finances play a major role?

Unfortunately, there's a fight for the client, the patient, the beneficiary. Often, alternatively of activating it, it is stopped somewhere for years.

Many times at the Volunteer Centre I met a situation where the individual after the intellectual crisis wanted to volunteer. On the another hand, his guardian categorically forbade him, even though I knew that he could handle himself. But there was most likely a concern that the patient would recover or activate and go to work, God forbid. And he will no longer be an attractive client for a given entity. They're gonna lose the individual on the indicator.

And that's how we grow DPS patients.

Because we're not developing them, we're not stimulating them, we're not pushing them out, we're offering pharmacological treatment on the 1 hand, on the another hand, treatment in centres that become ghettos of sick people. We do not include them in the environment of healthy people to make supporting patterns, we reenforce their problems.

How much do you think the outside environment is ready for specified people? due to the fact that you can say that individual will activate through volunteering, due to the fact that you will take care of him and meet him. But work may not be so easy anymore.

If an organisation builds a suitable partner environment, it is much easier. We have partners to whom we direct our subjects, organize their internships, volunteering, internships.

Often specified people get a occupation on volunteering due to the fact that they are determined to show that despite their difficulties, they care. It must be hard for them to find a occupation if they do it alone and admit that they are sick.

On the another hand, employers know something about these problems and diseases, they can benefit from reasonably advanced subsidies, from PFRON, for example, so for any people it may be an ugly advantage, due to the fact that for this individual they will gain backing to organize a occupation or an internship.

It must be remembered that illness is uneven due to the fact that 1 individual may have a temporary intellectual breakdown, any form of depression, and individual else may be in specified a condition that it will not function completely alone.

Then we don't offer him that. We focus on what we can do. For some, it's an apartment, for another clubs, for others, any practice, a course, something to go outside.

But if we are talking about people in a crisis, we are saying "the mentally sick person" due to the fact that it is not a continuous state.

This individual may be in the disease, may not be in it. due to the fact that the recovery and remission periods are intertwined or it's just 1 episode. And sometimes it's so uncollised that it doesn't exclude this individual from work or another activities.

There are various intellectual difficulties, there is depression, but there is schizophrenia or personality disorder, and sometimes there are many disorders and diseases in 1 person.

→ Depression is simply a illness and you gotta talk straight about it. •Anna Morawska-Borowiec, Magdalena Boroń

You said that people who are sick are helping others to heal, and that they could, for example, talk more about it in the media. But aren't they ashamed? due to the fact that I inactive think intellectual illness is stigmatizing.

They're mostly very afraid of it. For some, getting out of the home and coming to the center is simply a problem. Not to mention a public speech. That's what you should be ready for, and it's usually people who have a certain treatment and therapy process behind them. They already realize that this illness is, and now they want to share what it looks like.

We're here to advance self-preservation. The repair assistants are specified a tiny group that is ready for that. We've been moving a 1.5% run for 2 years. It presents the past of specified a individual and tells how treatment improves health.

We besides had the task “Activating mentally sick through volunteering”, where the stories of more than half of the participants were made public. With the participation of 2 people, a somewhat larger material was created.

What were their impressions?

Very positive. They were glad they could do it, though they were very afraid. It's been months. It was crucial that they knew what to say, that they should be calm, that it was not improvisation, due to the fact that sick people liked the structure: what would be, with whom, where, how long it would last, how incriminating, what they would ask. Participants knew the script, our coordinators besides helped, there were meetings with the maker of this material, so these people were prepared.

We as employees besides performed and stressed ourselves. It helped them to do it together. It was a fresh experience for them, too coming out it was a occupation for them to be confident.

You are cooperating with the Institute of civilian Affairs. What does this cooperation look like?

I think we started our first cooperation in 2008. It was substantive cooperation, i.e. participation in training, in public advisory. The Institute besides promoted our events, provided ad hoc consultations and financial support in the form of social services. We took part in the "Packet for Social Rockets" contest, where we could strengthen any initiative or promotional activity.

When we had no finance or deficiency of knowledge, the Institute filled this space.

In our interior regulations, we have training and training on the functioning of the organization or unit in the organization. Then we started utilizing the Institute's offer on social economics and social enterprise.

We regularly usage the advice of the Institute conducted within the Social Economics Support Centre, and now we powerfully focus on the improvement of social services.

On the another hand, we besides provided support for the Institute in the field of volunteering. I did tutoring support, certified the Institute in the field of model cooperation with volunteers.

And what social services do you offer?

We deal with treatment and rehabilitation of people after crises and environment support. We conduct free and unpaid business.

As part of our free activities, we run 2 environmental self-help houses.

One is for people after intellectual crises, in better condition, the another – for people with intellectual disabilities and intellectual disorders, as companions. They have all day filled with different forms of therapy and rehabilitation that aid them return to their regular functioning.

There is simply a self-help club, addressed to people who already have a treatment process behind them, cope with everyday life, are active, but inactive request immediate aid from a specialist or want to meet someone.

We have 2 assisted apartments where people can live, see how bills are paid, prepare meals, spend the day. They can function there completely independently, with the support of caregivers and assistants.

Pomost Association

We have a Voluntary Centre that helps enter socio-professional activation through volunteering.

Sick people do not always go to work or to school, and volunteering is flexible, voluntary and requires little time and effort. However, as part of our commercial activity, the alleged social enterprise we are, we run a intellectual wellness clinic and an accounting office for NGOs and another entities.

Welcome to internships, internships and volunteering!

Join us!

What activities would the organization want to implement or expand?

Now we are working on different interior solutions. Organizations undergo large metamorphosis due to the fact that guidelines change and we gotta adapt to them. But we would like to strengthen what is. I'm certain volunteering as a method will proceed to be supported. We included seniors in volunteer work. We mix them with volunteering of people who are sick, due to the fact that this is simply a affirmative intergenerational relation and an exchange of experiences. We besides have artistic volunteering that develops passions. There'll be fresh projects. We would besides like to contribute socio-professional activation to our activities, but it is hard to co-finance.

I say there are no shortages of customers in commercial activity?

No, it's not. We deficiency financial support for a circumstantial task or action that would be free of charge for those utilizing it.

We no longer want to rise money for any internships or courses that have been organised under EU funds for many years. Our participants have them for a bow due to the fact that they jump from 1 task to another and deficiency continuity. Here's a cosmetician, six months from now, something else, and they don't practice it.

It has its good side, but it does not consequence in real professional activation. And she gives you independence.

We have assisted housing, and it would be good for those surviving there to have a budget and manage it. Not everyone has their income from work. any people have a pension and they pay any kind of payment, but it would be good if that payment was bigger to make them feel guilty.

And what amazed you the most at your organization?

When I started, everything was new. I had any cognition from college, but the practice showed that we are not looking at a coincidence, but at a man. Everyone's different. You just should be open and talk to a sick man like a man, due to the fact that these people sense that we're dishonest, and they won't take any steps if they see that we're tapping any intellectual rules that don't make sense.

I was besides amazed that these people have many talents and can usage them and that illness does not exclude them from their social roles. We shouldn't make closed ghettos. This treatment should only be for a while. But there is possible in everyone, and everyone has something they can use. Not everyone has to go to work or volunteering, but they can usage this possible differently.

They're not just patients, these people can do a lot more than the public says.

They truly know a lot, and they can, only to extract it requires the preparation of a individual who will support them. It takes quite a few work, step by step, from tiny activities through more complicated ones. All you gotta do is give the right tools and show patience.

Because these people ask quite a few questions, and it's not due to the fact that they're mean, it's due to the fact that they're afraid they can't handle it. It is so essential to strengthen their assurance and give tasks that are adequate to their current capabilities.

What does working in the organization give you?

Definitely development. There is much to learn, not only in working with our participants and mark groups, due to the fact that we besides have additional training, trips. And first of all, there are relationships.

It's not just interworking relationships, due to the fact that we're dealing with those we aid with, with volunteers.

They are mostly members of the association, so they influence what happens in the organization. That is why we must be their partners, not their superiors. This work surely teaches humility, but it besides gives us area for development.

Why did you choose this kind of activity? Why pedagogy, association, aid people in crisis?

It utilized to be hard to get into any college, so I started looking for things where things would be about the same as my interests. I've finished quite a few directions. erstwhile pedagogy, occupational therapy, art therapy, dance pedagogy. Management and discipline of work I learned on movie and tv production, due to the fact that there was specified a rigid framework that lacked in humanist directions, where there is focus on man, and there is no management and business knowledge. And the pedagogy allowed me to combine it, showed that you besides gotta look at a person, adjust requirements.

I went to occupational therapy and pedagogy at the same time, and in the meantime I was already volunteering. The “Pomost” Association was my first conscious volunteering.

I started creating projects myself, initially free of charge, then I was offered more cooperation and after a year I was already full-time. These were projects that active management.

In the meantime, I volunteered to coordinate volunteering. I went to extra courses and training and this volunteering stayed with me, even though I started my career with strictly therapeutic work and I thought I would halt there. But I saw that volunteering was the best treatment. I left art classes for volunteering due to the fact that I thought it would be an effective method. I enjoyed it, and I knew I knew better.

Thank you for talking to me.

(Interview conducted and prepared by the drafting squad of the civilian Affairs Week)