Manda Institute for Counseling Services

10/11/2024

World Mental Health Day:
The Manda Institute supports equitable access to mental health services for all who need them.

07/04/2024

Psychotherapy: Expert mental health counseling and treatment services delivered by qualified professionals, dedicated to fostering personal growth, resilience, and overall well-being.

05/13/2024

At the Manda Institute, we want to wish all Mothers a Happy and Blessed Mothers Day. May God bless you and keep you. May God cause His Face to shine upon you and give you peace.

11/24/2022

As we celebrate Thanksgiving, we want to thank you for giving us the opportunity to be a part of your mental health journey or work. We are dedicated to helping you pursue your mental health care goals.

11/14/2022

About Fairfield County’s Community Foundation
Fairfield County’s Community Foundation promotes philanthropy as a means to create change in Fairfield County, focusing on innovative and collaborative solutions to critical issues impacting the community. Individuals, families, corporations and organizations can establish charitable funds or contribute to existing funds. The Community Foundation is in compliance with the Council on Foundations’ national standards and has awarded over $230 million in grants to nonprofits in Fairfield County and beyond. As a trusted nonprofit partner and thought
leader, Fairfield County’s Community Foundation brings together community organizers, business experts, and philanthropists to solve our region’s challenges.
"Our goal is to create a vital and inclusive community, where every individual has the opportunity to thrive.
For more info visit their website: www.fccfoundation.org"

Good news is good news when it is delivered in time. At the Manda Institute, we are grateful to God and the Fairfield County Community Foundation's Women and Girls Program for the generous grant we received in November 2021. The grant helps us to promote the mental health care services for women and girls of Bridgeport, Fairfield County, CT. We were able to visit homes and have debriefing sessions with women and girls.

10/30/2022

I am wondering😎 With all that is going on in the world, how are you taking care of yourself? Remember "self-care" has "self" in it. Please share with us🤔

10/27/2022

10 Fundamental Components of Mental Health Recovery
By Charles Manda, Ph.D.

October is mental health month, and it is our tradition to share something with our viewers. This year I share with you the 10 fundamental components of recovery and development of resiliency from mental health challenges and substance abuse. The Kentucky Medicaid Provider Manual defines recovery- as the ability to live a fulfilling and productive life despite the continued presence of a disability. While resiliency is the learned ability to cope and adapt positively to the challenges and change brought on by distress, disability, or adverse circumstances.
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) lists 10 fundamental components of recovery:
•Self-direction: You self-direct your recovery process by defining your own life goals and designing a unique path towards those goals.
•Individualized and person-centered: There is no one-size-fits-all approach to recovery. Though clinicians may use similar approaches, your recovery process differs from another's.
•Empowerment: as a client, you participate in the therapy process and decisions that have to be taken about your life. South Africans say, “Nothing for us without us.”
•Holistic: recovery encompasses your whole life: mind, body, spirit, and community.
•Nonlinear: Recovery is not a step-by-step process but one based on continual growth, occasional setbacks, and learning from experience.
•Strengths-based: recovery must value and build on your multiple capacities, resiliencies, talents, coping abilities, and inherent worth.
•Peer or Mutual support: recovery must provide a sense of belonging, supportive relationships, valued roles, and community. Isolation can kill.
•Respect: a clinician has to respect your decisions and participation in therapy.
•Responsibility: you promote your own wellness, self-care, and journeys of recovery.
•Hope: Recovery provides the essential and motivating message of a better future.

Experiencing a mental health challenge(s), difficulty coping, or sleeping? Book a session with us at: www.minstitute.us

Charles Manda, Pastoral Counselor, Louisville, KY, 40205, (502) 215-3847, Hi, I am a Licensed Pastoral Counselor in the State of Kentucky. As a mental health professional, I work with a wide range of clients and provide therapy that gives special attention to the role that spirituality plays in a pe...

12/19/2021

Good news is good news when it is delivered in time. At the Manda Institute, we are grateful to God and the Fairfield County Community Foundation's Women and Girls Program for the generous grant we received in November 2021. The grant helps us to promote the mental health care services for women and girls of Bridgeport, Fairfield County, CT. We were able to visit homes and have debriefing sessions with women and girls.

09/15/2021

HAYMARKET PEOPLE'S FUND, JUNE 16, 2021

We want to share with our partners our joy and gratitude to God and to Haymarket People's Fund for the Emergency Response Grant that we received on June 16, 2021. We were able to intervene on behalf of our clients' emergency needs that were triggered by the Coronavirus Pandemic. That reduced toxic stress, anxiety, and ultimately improved the mental health and wellbeing of the beneficiaries.

09/15/2021

Expanding mental health work, Nashville, TN, Aug 9, 2020

The Manda Institute's CEO joins CEOs of Kapingos Fashion House; Kapinga Foundation; Kadiwaku Family Foundation; Groupe Triumvirat; and East Eagle Foundation, USA. The purpose of the meeting was to cross-pollinate wisdom, skills, and resources to promote mental health and economic growth between the two states of Connecticut and Tennessee.
Some joint projects were agreed upon to optimize our output.

09/15/2021

September, Su***de Prevention Month

Why spending donor money on Mental Health? Sept.14, 2021

A 2013 article by the World Health Organization (WHO), "Investing in Mental Health: Evidence for Action", acknowledges that mental health and well-being are fundamental to our collective and individual ability as humans to think, emote, interact with each other, earn a living and enjoy life.
However, the low levels of service availability, the current and projected burdens of mental disorders are of significant concern not only for public health but also for economic development and social welfare.
For example, a 2011 Centers for Diseases (CDC) report showed that the economic impact of mental illness in the United States alone is substantial - more than $400 billion annually. The National Council of Mental Health revealed that each year, more than one in five Americans experience a mental illness or substance use disorder. Fear of death, toxic stress, trauma, anxiety, depression, death of loved ones, exhaustion by medical staff, etc. are but few mental illnesses or symptoms that the Coronavirus pandemic has compounded.
If left untreated, mental illnesses can result in disability, substance abuse, loss of productivity, family conflict, su***de or homicide.
• December 14, 2012- is remembered in America as a fateful day. A 20-year old Adam Lanza, after killing his mother, drove five miles to Newtown, in the State of Connecticut, and shot and killed 20 elementary school children and 7 staff before committing su***de. 29 people died including himself.
• Nov 21, 2014, New York Times headline: "Adam Lanza’s Mental Problems were ‘Completely Untreated’ Before Newtown Shootings." Adding, “Lanza showed signs of severe and deteriorating internalized mental health problems…It was his untreated mental illness that was a predisposing factor.”
• January 13, 2013, President Obama called Americans to start talking about Mental Health to break down the misconceptions and stigma associated with mental illness, promote recovery and create healthy communities.
• April 26, 2020- Dr. Lorna Breen, an American medical doctor (MD) and the emergency room director at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, who treated coronavirus patients, died by su***de. Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes’ Fund was established in loving memory of Dr. Lorna to provide mental health support to healthcare providers.
• September 14, 2021- I spent time comforting my daughter whose 15-year old friend committed su***de in South Africa.
Mental illness is not only an American problem, it is a global problem that calls for global solutions.
This is why at Manda Institute, we are utilizing our resources and those of our donors to promote innovative ways to play a lead role in reshaping the delivery of mental health services, addressing current barriers and shortcomings to equitable access, and responding to the escalating burden of mental disorders in Fairfield County, Connecticut.

09/15/2021

Navigating mental health care during the Covid-19 pandemic, May 21, 2021

May is the Mental Health Month in the USA. We engaged our community partners to navigate through the mental health landscape as we battle coronavirus. The workshop explored what resources partners in Bridgeport, Fairfield County have for self-care. It was attended by Kitengie Foundation, Kadiwaku Family Foundation, Connecticut Institute for Social Entrepreneurship, Siloe LLC, and Ntonta & Associates, LLC.