Social Workers both from the Local Government Units (LGUs) and the DSWD-7 (Central Visayas) conducted initial critical incident stress debriefing (CISD) sessions to earthquake-survivors in the different evacuation centers in Bohol and Cebu.

CISD is a pycho-social intervention that helps victims of disasters cope with their traumatic experiences by pouring out their feelings and fears.

DSWD Central Visayas Regional Director Mercedita Jabagat said that DSWD personnel wii  go on 24-hour duty to assist affected families. She added that trained stress debriefers will also be deployed in earthquake hit areas to conduct psycho-social interventions to grieving families.

As of 6:00 today, the number of evacuation centers has risen to 72 providing temporary shelter to 12,976 families or 65,274 persons. Of the total evacuation centers,  25 are in the five municipalities of Cebu serving 1,009 families or 5,439 persons.  Bohol, on the other hand, now has 47 evacuation centers spread in 16 towns and cities serving 11,967 families or 59,835 persons.

Director Jabagat said ‘We are now keeping in touch with all our local counterparts who  were trained on Family and Community Disaster Preparedness and Response with emphasis on Relief Operation, Camp Management and Coordination as well as Psycho-Social Processing (PSP)  to help us in counseling, relief and rehabilitation works.” ###