Field work for both M.A.Social Work in Public Health and M.A. Social Work in Mental Health is spread over two years of the programme. The first year field work is generic field work i.e. not located in the specialised area of health and mental health but exposing the students to other range of social issues at the community or institutional level. In the second year, there are two blocks of field work consisting of five weeks each. One of this block field work is located in the broad area of rural/tribal, community health and community mental health, wherein students are placed in agencies that work on rural/tribal health and mental health issues. For Mental Health students the emphasis is to understand and engage in using a community based approach to treatment, rehabilitation, recovery as well as awareness building and prevention of mental health problems. Most of the agencies in which the rural block field work is located are integrating health and mental health issues with other social development concerns such as poverty, livelihood, gender issues and so on. The second block field work is usually based in urban health and mental health settings and includes hospital, school, special education, community based models of health and mental health care. Students are exposed to initiatives relating to child and adolescent mental health, women and mental health, de-addiction interventions, conflict and health, national health and mental health programmes, community mental health, dalit health, health movements, environmental health issues, sex work and prostitution, LGBT issues,and so on.

Field Action Projects / Other Projects/ Engagements :

1)Muskaan, Child and Adolescent Guidance Centre

2)Tarasha- a community-based recovery and reintegration project with women living with mental disorders

3) Integrated Rural Health and Development Project working on tribal health, mental health and livelihood aspects.

Consultations/ seminars held by the centres / faculty through field action projects:

National Seminar on Feminist Queer Organising in India held in collaboration with LABIA, a queer feminist LBT collective based in Bombay, at TISS, Mumbai on 19th and 20th December, 2015
The fourth Global Mental Health Summit was held in Mumbai, India, on the 28th and 29th of November, 2015. It was conducted jointly by the Movement for Global Mental Health, The Banyan Academy of Leadership in Mental Health, Public Health Foundation of India and hosted by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India.

Nature of field work agencies. Please give broad themes / profile of field work agencies :

Urban and rural mental health
Community mental health
Agencies working on gender and mental health, child and adolescent mental health, school mental health, de-addiction services, use of creative arts and body based interventions for promoting well being

Placements of students :

1) Leading organisations working on public health and mental health , research based organisations, field action projects of TISS.

2) In state rural livelihood mission programs

3) Own ventures

Public and Memorial Lectures organised by different centres :

1) Grace Mathew Memorial Lecture : Ms.Madhuri Krishnaswamy, an activist with the Jagrit Adivasi Dalit Sangathan,titled, 'Seeing the Whole Elephant: A Perspective on Public Health and Social Transformation from an Adivasi Movement', 7th August, 2015

2) Public lecture: Panacea of wisdom for happiness-A Buddhist perspective-By Ven. Geshe .Dorji Damdul, Director-Tibet House, 27th January, 2016

3) Public lecture: Housing First on the Move: Lessons Learned from Ethnographic Research in Delhi-by Dr.Deborah Padgett, Professor, NYU. 8th January 2016

4) Public lecture: Towards a Healthy Leadership for World Health Organization (WHO).
A discussion on the Election of the Next Director-General and the Leadership
Challenges of WHO-by Dr.Joe Thomas, Director, PPD-Bangladesh