Our mission is to provide comprehensive mental health services to children, adolescents, adults and their families in a secure and inclusive space.
We believe mental health care should be accessible to everyone, and no one should face these problems alone, or shy away from seeking care due to the surrounding stigma linked with mental health services.
CAFS provides clinical and psychosocial services to individuals experiencing mental distress in a setting where they feel at home. At our core, we provide services of the highest standard through a network of fully-certified clinical, counselling, child and adolescent psychologists, arts, movement and drama therapists, all from our child-friendly hub in Colombo.
From this space, our collaborative team also look outwards to facilitate:
- Awareness campaigns advocating for the needs of people living with specific psychosocial disabilities such as autism.
- Workshops and training sessions building skills in mental health care in workplaces, schools and other institutions.
- Guidance and support for trainee psychologists, as they develop their skills and practice.
Through its clinical service, CAFS provides assessments, tailor-made interventions and management of a range of mental health conditions for children, adolescents, adults and their families.
In order to increase mental health literacy in the community CAFS also conducts annual awareness campaigns addressing various mental health-related topics, which have included ‘Think Blue’ an Autism awareness campaign, ‘LIVE’ a suicide prevention campaign and ‘iamwithyouSL’ a campaign to reduce the stigma surrounding mental health. We also regularly promote better mental health both in and out of Colombo, the main city in Sri Lanka, in which we are located. Since our initiation we have carried out 6 awareness campaigns with our autism awareness campaign having been taken outside of Colombo as well in order to reach a wider portion of the community.
We also carry out monthly creative arts-based workshops for children with and without special needs under a workshop series known as ‘scribbles’ designed using creative methods as a form of expressing psychological and emotional needs, aiming to bridge the gap in communicating and expressing oneself. Being one of the oldest workshops initiated by CAFS, it has reached pre-schools, schools, child welfare centres, parents and children from different walks of life, both in and out of Colombo.
We also facilitate a range of workshops and trainings covering a wide range of topics in the field of mental health and building mental health skills, in schools, hospitals, workplaces, institutions and for the general public.
We also provide several internship opportunities for budding psychologists to gain the knowledge and experience they require in order to provide high-quality mental health support ensuring the long-term continuity of mental health care in the country. Trainees are given guidance and support in clinical skill development as well as encouraged to come up with projects of their own that could contribute toward the betterment of mental health in different populations.
In addition we have also formed collaborations and work with hospitals and schools to improve mental health care in these settings.
Boralesgamuwa
- THEME Institute (Sri Lanka)
- Ember
- Leo Wick and B&B Health Grant Scheme Australia along with many other individual donors
