Tam An Project

Project Tam An aims to raise awareness and provide prevention and intervention services in mental health by engaging schools and communities in the Vietnamese immigrant population in San Jose, California. The Project has three overarching goals:

Goal 1: To increase the awareness of adolescent mental health and substance abuse issues, including professional treatment, within the Vietnamese community.
Goal 2: To improve access to mental health and substance abuse services among Vietnamese adolescents.
Goal 3: To improve overall mental health and social functioning among Vietnamese adolescents.

Two prong-approach
Besides providing direct school-based services to youth, Tam-An attempts to reach out to parents, families and communities through Community Education as described below.

Community Education
Tam An’s innovative program, the Community Education Strategy, is a plan of action aiming to raise awareness, improve access, and improve overall mental health and social functioning among Vietnamese adolescents, by using print, radio, and other appropriate media, towards the goal of building healthy families and strong communities.

The following are the key messages of our Community Education campaign:

Mental health is a part of every community and family.
Mental illness is real and must be acknowledged.
No one is to be blamed.
Mental illness can be treated.
Resources exist and treatment works!

Target audience
The weekly radio shows and newspaper articles directly target Vietnamese parents, care givers, health professionals, particularly those who get their daily news from Vietnamese media. Stored on the internet, the shows can be accessed at any time by other parents, care givers, health educators, community organizers, social workers and anyone interested in the emotional health of Vietnamese recent immigrants.

Radio
Since October 2007, over fifty 20-minute Vietnamese speaking segments have been produced and broadcasted weekly on Dan Sinh radio program AM 1500 on Saturdays at 9:30-10am and Sundays at 11:30 – midnight.

Print
A transcript of the radio show is published weekly on newspaper Thoi Bao, column Dan Sinh. This daily newspaper has a circulation of 20,000 in the San Jose area.

Video
Each year, in collaboration with ICAN and other agencies serving the Vietnamese population in Santa Clara County, AARS participates in organizing a day-long Family forum attracting hundreds of Vietnamese parents for a full day of culturally competent workshops, informative exchanges and fun performances. A main feature of the day is the Popular Theater performance, with grass-roots volunteer community members humorously acting out daily dilemmas of Vietnamese families living in the United States. Another effective intervention is the “fishbowl” workshop, where youth sit in an inner circle and share about their struggles growing up bicultural, while parents, in the larger circle, listen attentively to these poignant testimonies. This exercise has shown to increase empathy, insight and reduce conflict in Vietnamese families.

Please click on the link below to access Tam-An radio shows, videos and articles:

http://www.irccsanjose.com/contents/tamanprog.aspx

Tam An is funded by the