Social University

Hello, I am Dr. Lecturer Işıl TEKİN from Istanbul Medeniyet University, Faculty of Educational Sciences, Department of Guidance and Psychological Counselling. Istanbul Medeniyet University is a social university that feeds on society and aims to contribute to social problems. Our university is an institution that aims to be a part of the solution to social problems at national and international level. In this context, we carry out many studies with social responsibility awareness. I will briefly summarise the psychosocial support activities we carried out after the earthquakes of 6 February 2023. We carried out these activities after the earthquake from two main branches. The first of these is the work we carried out in Istanbul. The second is the work we carried out directly in the earthquake zone. The activities we carried out in Istanbul started from the first day of the earthquake. On 6 February 2023, a crisis desk was established at our university. According to our student information system, we reached out one by one to our students whose residence address or place of registration is located in earthquake zones. We tried to help our students meet these needs by working in cooperation with various institutions and organisations to meet their urgent needs. Since there is a crisis situation and psychological first aid is a part of these interviews, our professors and research assistants from the mental health field of our university made these phone calls. After this first contact with our students, we contacted them again to determine their psychological needs. First of all, we tried to determine what kind of psychological service would be more beneficial for them by conducting triage interviews. Then we directed our students to the psychological service they needed. We met all these services, all these psychological supports with the resources of our university. We provided these services with our students who graduated from the field of mental health, our students who are experienced in this field and the psychological counselling unit of our university. In addition to this individual psychological support we offer to our students, we carry out group studies with my colleague Dr. Numan TURAN, one of the academic staff of our university. Another one of the activities we carried out in Istanbul after the earthquake is educational activities. In other words, we can say vocational empowerment activities. With the social responsibility awareness and social responsibility understanding of our university, we brought together our aims to support our graduates and students theoretically and practically under all circumstances; We have organised various trainings to strengthen our students' understanding of trauma and psychological counselling skills in a trauma-sensitive manner.
The activities we carried out in Istanbul were not only for our students who were earthquake victims. In addition, we also carried out activities for our citizens who came to Istanbul from the earthquake zones and were placed in the Credit Dormitories Institution. Our faculty members carried out group activities for families. In addition to these activities in Istanbul, we have been carrying out psychosocial support services in the earthquake region from a second branch. We have 8 teams consisting of 45 people and they continue their work in the field in rotation. Our first team was in the earthquake zone in February. Our teams are currently continuing their work. In this context, we continue psychosocial support services in Antakya and İskenderun regions. We can briefly summarise our work in the field under a few headings. Firstly, I can talk about our tent and container city visits. We visited our earthquake victims one by one in tent and container cities. During these visits, we aimed to make them feel that they are not alone by paying attention to the principles of clinical interviewing and to provide appropriate guidance or appropriate psychological support by identifying their psychological needs. In this context, in addition to tent and container city visits, we conducted individual interviews with people who needed individual interviews. In addition to our work for earthquake victims, we carried out employee support practices for the staff and volunteers serving in the region. In this context, we provided both group and individual employee support services. There is one point we attach importance to in all these studies. Perhaps this point, which makes Istanbul Medeniyet University different, has been to make contact with the people we communicate with sustainable. Unfortunately, this service can be limited to one-time contacts. However, in order to prevent this situation, we took the contact information of the volunteers from the people we interviewed and stated that we wanted to contact them again when we returned to Istanbul. All of the people we contacted wanted to contact us again. In order to realise this, I contacted them again one month after the first interview and at one-month intervals. These interviews showed how great the psychological needs of the earthquake victims were and that our work was meaningful. Of course, all these studies are the product of a collective effort beyond personal efforts, the capacity to work interdisciplinary and the awareness of social responsibility. I can especially say this: Istanbul Medeniyet University is a social university that aims to be a part of the solution and even a pioneer in social problems and social development. We wish success to all students who will enter the exam. We would like to see you at Istanbul Medeniyet University.