After the earthquakes in Kahramanmaraş, the earthquake victims who were hosted in Mersin Kırkkaşık Girls' Dormitory continue to be provided with psychological support by Mersin University Psychology Department faculty members and volunteer graduate students.
Technical team coordinator, Mersin University Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Department of Psychology faculty member Prof. Dr. Aslı Aslan's psychosocial support trainings and coordinator are Prof. Dr. The aim of Arzu Aydın Acı's work is to provide comprehensive psychoinformation about the psychological effects of the earthquake, to scan and reduce the acute stress symptoms that frighten the victims and which are difficult to bear, and to regain their coping skills.
Giving information about the psychological support work, Prof. Dr. Arzu Aydın Acı said, “We started working as of February 20. We provide psychosocial support services for earthquake survivors with a team of approximately 23 people, mostly expert psychologists. This service; screening for psychological symptoms, psychological first aid and identification of needs. We interview about 35 earthquake survivors every day. We were divided into teams as children, adolescents and adults according to their areas of expertise. These teams are conducting the negotiations. In the kindergartens located in the country, we provide guidance and guidance to families who have acute stress symptoms and have difficulty coping with these symptoms.” said.
Stating that an online software was designed for the scanning method carried out, Prof. Dr. Arzu Aydın Acı said, “First of all, an online software was prepared for this scan. In the preparation of this software, Assoc. Dr. Onur Uca helped us a lot. This software has been extremely helpful for us to conduct screening and follow-up studies. KYK dormitory management also gave us a lot of support in this process. Four meeting rooms have been reserved for us. We hold meetings in these rooms between 10.00:14.00 and XNUMX:XNUMX every day.” used the phrases.
Stating that posters were hung in places with high human traffic in the country, an announcement was made once a day for the support program held in the country. Dr. Arzu Aydın Acı concluded her words by underlining that they also visited all the rooms one by one and that the citizens affected by the earthquake could receive psychological support if they contacted the team.
Anıl Zerey, a graduate student in the Department of Psychology of the University, who voluntarily participated in the psychological support work project, stated that as a volunteer team, they immediately took action to help the citizens affected by the earthquake and that they experienced a different happiness when they saw that people felt better after the interviews.