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Sallies ramp-up emotional support for quake-affected people.

The Salvation Army has boosted the number of its psychosocial support workers in quake-affected Canterbury.

Teams of Salvation Army officers have been providing emotional support and referrals to mental health services to Cantabrians since the September 4 earthquake. Officers from Salvation Army centres across the country will bring the number to 50 psychosocial support workers in the region by tomorrow morning. The Salvation Army in Australia has officers experienced in civil defence emergencies on standby, ready to fly in to Christchurch.

Officers are located at welfare centres and will tomorrow join 40 teams of assessors and members of government support agencies, which began fanning out into Christchurch’s outer suburbs today.

One of the key Salvation Army coordinators is Major Daryl Crowden, an Australian officer who has extensive emergency counselling experience, including working with the survivors of last year’s Haiti Earthquake, the 2004 tsunami, Australian bush fires and in Rwanda.

Salvation Army spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Lyndon Buckingham says the Army now has a large pool of highly-experienced people to call on, and has been able to rapidly get them into Canterbury.

“Our experience from the September quake was that the emotional shock and after-effects can be great, long-lasting and are often downplayed by those affected,” he says.

The teams will work for five days and then be relieved by another 50 personnel.

Despite damage to its divisional headquarters, central city welfare centre and other buildings, The Salvation Army is also preparing for a massive spike in demand on its welfare centres in the area. A fully-operational headquarters has been set up at The Salvation Army’s Sydenham centre.

Officers, staff and volunteers are providing up to 2000 meals a day at emergency welfare centre and providing care and support to hundreds of affected people.

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