Brian Dorman arrived in the Chinese capital from the U.S. nine days ago, and has been staying all alone in a designated hotel ever since. One day, he received a flyer. 

"The other day I opened my door to pick up my lunch that is delivered every day from a nearby restaurant, which is quite good, by the way, and I spotted this little flyer and it appeared to be about some group offering psychological counseling to people feeling, you know, depressed, I guess, as a result of being isolated," said Dorman, a media worker. 

Dorman found out that non-profit organization Sunshine Partner was working with the Beijing Association of Social Psychology to provide mental health support for people under quarantine. He put CGTN in touch with the volunteers working at the organization. 

"We have been providing psychological support for residents, villagers and medics in Wuhan since the second day of the Chinese New Year holiday until March 5. Then we came back to Beijing. We found many overseas students and foreigners have come back to the city. Then we started to provide psychological support for them," said Zhu He, a volunteer at Sunshine Partner. 

We were told about 20 people had contacted the support group. Some were overseas students, others were just visiting the country. 

The volunteer said they came across all kinds of anxieties – for instance, one person was worried because he was on the same inbound flight as a confirmed case. 

"We have several ways to calm their mood. For example tell them to shift their attention by reading books, newspapers ... and we also organized 'online disco dancing' on WeChat ... When they were dancing and singing, they could feel a release in pressure at night," Zhu added. 

The support group doesn't just help Chinese-speaking people, they have volunteers who can speak a number of languages. A volunteer called Zhang Yiliang can provide psychological help in both English and Spanish. 

A report published by "The Lancet" this March noted that there are several ways to address the psychological impact of quarantine. They include keeping one's social network alive, communicating with friends, family and colleagues, and talking to health officials. 

Dorman believes the service provided by Sunshine Partner can be extremely valuable. 

Trained volunteers use their free time to assist others in their time of need. Sometimes, a little bit of care can go a long way. 

(Yu Yang, Meng Tao also contributed to the report.)

(Cover image: Volunteers at Sunshine Partner provide psychological support for people under quarantine in Beijing, March 2, 2020. /CGTN)