The School of Social Sciences from the Assam Kaziranga University in association with the Institution's Innovation Council (IIC) organized a webinar on "Skill training in psychosocial rehabilitation for social workers" on 30^th April 2022 from 3 to 5 pm. The guest speaker was Dr. Sreekanth T who is a research fellow in a  UK funded Project in the department of Psychiatry at National Institute of Mental Health and Neuroscience (NIMHANS), Bangalore.

The program started with welcome address by Mr. Harikrishnan U, Assistant Professor, Department of Social Work, School of Social Sciences, Assam Kaziranga University. The inaugural address was given by Dr. Srihari Krishna, Registrar, Assam Kaziranga University. It was followed by a speech by Prof. (Dr.) Chandra Kanta Gogoi, Dean of the School of Social Sciences, Assam Kaziranga University.

In his talk, Dr. Sreekanth T talked about the importance of the Biopsychosocial Model approach by George Engel in Psychosocial Rehabilitation and how all the factors are interconnected and important in assessing a person. He also talked about the role of the Psychiatric Social Worker in Psychosocial rehabilitation for the clinical intervention i.e., a clinical interview with the patient to assess the person's severity of the symptoms and the problems, analyze and formulate the symptoms through a multi-factorial approach by keeping in mind all the biological, psychological and social factors (Bio-Psychosocial Model), assessing the vocational training for people with mental illness, networking between various governmental, non-governmental and religious organization for various disability welfare benefits, family tracing for the homeless mentally ill persons, etc.

Further, the speaker discussed two case studies with the participants and asked them to identify the psychosocial problems of the person and also to conduct a disability assessment scale where the participants actively performed the tasks. Dr. Sreekanth also discussed the different traditional models of rehabilitation i.e., the medical model which focused on the medical intervention for treatment, social model which thinks that disability is a socially created problem, recovery model believes that a person who grows beyond the catastrophic effects of the illness develops new meaning and purpose in one's life and lastly the biopsychosocial model which integrates medical and social model as well as psychological model.

The speaker also shared the different scales for the assessment of disability (WHODAS and IDEAS), the assessment of social skills (Social skills assessment Proforma), the assessment of vocational potential (Vocational potential assessment scale), the assessment of recovery (Recovery assessment scale or recovery star) and lastly for the assessment of functionality (The global assessment of functioning).

After this, there was a Q&A session where the students put forward their queries and also their feedback on the webinar. The webinar ended with a vote of thanks by Ms. Lolly Lolly H Yeptho, 4^th semester MSW student and student coordinator of the webinar, Department of Social Work, School of Social Sciences, Assam Kaziranga University. A total of 75 students attended the webinar which ended successfully.