The George Warren Brown School of Social Work of Washington University in St. Louis, USA organizes a Winter Institute every year for a select group of students, who get a chance to visit a developing country and learn about the mental health scenario in that country. In December 2008 and 2009, two groups of students visited Chennai and were offered a week-long orientation to mental health in India and the work of The Banyan and stakeholders in the mental health sector.

Feedback from students:

“This course helped me to understand the things we have been introduced to in social work regarding mental health and the services, but in the context of Indian culture.”

“Good introduction to mental health in India and learned about the various facets. We were able to have a good mixture of excellent field visits with classroom lectures. I found all subjects, presentations and field visits useful and necessary.”

“The course was extremely useful: seeing the patients at The Banyan and at the Institute of Mental Health will impact my career and my life.”

“This course was incredibly useful. It will inform how I think about resources available to address issues of mental health on a global scale. It was meaningful to see and visit all of the different facilities and programmes developed by The Banyan. We were also able to develop a comparative context through visits to SCARF and IMH. Every presentation was very relevant and constructed a very cohesive story of mental health and marginality in India.”