One of the biggest lessons I learned throughout the summer was the importance of being adaptable when working with a community partner. Whether it was unexpected changes to summer camp that prevented my participation, short workshop timelines, or activities that did not go as planned, there were many moments where our original expectations did not match the reality on the ground. While some of these changes were frustrating, I learned to focus more on what I could do within the circumstances rather than what I had originally hoped to accomplish. Looking back, I think these experiences helped me become more comfortable with uncertainty and taught me that adapting our approach was often necessary to best support the community we were working with.

Participating in the SRT program also showed me how global health researchers develop tools that are based on the needs of the specific target population. For example, we had the opportunity to develop surveys, qualitative interview questions, and workshop material that required us to be intentional about asking why we collect certain information and how that information can actually be useful to Udayan Care. Furthermore, I also learned how research can inevitably pivot from original goals based on what we learn in the field. Most notably, we intended to host a second session for the caregiver first aid workshop series to build off of the interests that were expressed in the first session. However, we realized that trauma-informed care would be more effective curriculum for the caregivers based on what we learned from individual interviews with the residents. This session ended up being highly successful, as the caregivers were highly receptive of the content and eager to learn more.

We also learned how to navigate professional relationships in a research setting. While we faced some difficulties in the initial phase of training our interns and aligning with an effective timeline for workshops and screenings, we engaged in productive conversations with our community partner on how to best address thesse challenges. Udayan Care staff provided invaluable advice in how to navigate such dyanmics in the professional setting. By the end of the summer, we noticed tremendous growth in how our interns approached the project work and work relationships.

One of the more difficult parts of this experience was learning how to process the emotional weight of some of our work. During screenings, children trusted us with incredibly personal experiences, and there were moments when it was difficult knowing that I could listen and provide support, but could not necessarily address the larger challenges they were facing. At the same time, I am incredibly grateful that the children felt comfortable sharing these parts of their lives with me, and I think each conversation left an impact on me in some way. This experience taught me the importance of taking time to process my own emotions so that I could continue approaching each interaction with the attention, empathy, and care that the children deserved.

This upcoming semester, our team will continue working to finalize data analysis and compile recommendations from what we learned on the ground. While an initial data analysis was completed in July, we plan to continue this into the fall semester to elucidate longitudinal trends in data and understand the unique set of information that each validated survey provides (especially the new resilience measure that was incorporated into the battery of mental health screening tools). Finally, we intend to finalize the mental health and operational manual for Udayan Care so that future Duke teams and mental health staff at Udayan have a standardized set of resources for future work.