Naya Daur

Domain V · Systemic, relational, group & community · Sarbani Das Roy, Srikumar Mukherjee · 2007 · Kolkata, India

What it is

Naya Daur ("new era") is not a psychotherapy. It is a city-wide, street-based community mental health outreach service for homeless people with psychosocial disabilities, started in June 2007 by Iswar Sankalpa, a Kolkata non-profit co-founded by Sarbani Das Roy (director, Ashoka Fellow) and…

Format

• Iswar Sankalpa does not publish numbered phases with session counts. The stages below are assembled from the order in which its annual report, programme page and profiles describe the work; the stage labels and transition criteria are unless tagged.

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• Who this guide is for. A clinician (psychiatrist, psychologist, psychotherapist, psychiatric social worker) joining or partnering with Naya Daur, or adapting a street-based proxy-family model elsewhere. No certification, licence or fidelity scale for delivering "Naya Daur" was found; it is an organisational programme, not a franchised model. Anyone wishing to use the name or replicate formally should contact Iswar…

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Does it involve any substance, plant preparation, remedy or supplement? Has your doctor or prescriber been told, especially about any medication you take?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• Does it use a device, heat, cold, water or a physical procedure? Has a medical professional checked that it is safe for you?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• Documents held by others, loss or theft on the street.
• Engaging ward health staff consistently; low community awareness.
• Distress when memories return; family rejection stories; grief over lost years.
• Slurs for mental illness common locally (shelters called "pagaler ghar"); correct gently.
• Deaths occur in this group (the report lists deaths among outcomes); police training gaps.

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.