An exciting journey along recent innovations and developments in education, and a plea for a shift in the teaching/training approach in the global mental health.
Introduction:
The problem: All low income countries face a huge shortage of mental health care staff. There are even countries with no or only one psychiatrist and some without any specialized mental health care provider. That’s why capacity building in this sector is one of the main challenges.
photo from CORDAID mental health capacity building session in Haiti, 2011
But most NGOs and education institutes in this field still have a strong ‘bricks and mortar’ and 1.0 education approach, where there is a one-way dissemination of knowledge from teacher/trainer to student/health worker with books/manuals and lectures/slides. Where scaling up capacity building means distributing more manuals/books and the deployment of more trainers and tutors.
I don’t think we can solve the immense workforce gap in mental health if we keep on focusing on this 1.0 education.
Continue reading →
Yesterday, the World Health Organization (WHO) Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse released 2 new guidelines, a news release and an article in the The Journal of the American Medical Association.
In the last couple of years, the WHO had received numerous requests for guidance for mental health care after trauma and loss. These 2 publications are the result of the work of dozens practitioners and organizations in the field, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Continue reading →
This is the start of a new series on this in2mhconnect website, the ‘Global mental Health Inside Stories’. In this series I want to collect and spread information/ideas from people active in mental health from all over the world and specially from low resource settings or fragile countries.
I hope this series contributes to more insight in the challenges and wishes from people active in these settings and adds to a more bottom up movement in global mental health.
Dr. Jibril I.M. Handulah, physician practicing mental health in Borama, Northern Somalia, is the first who is willing to share his insights and experiences with us. Which is fantastic, given his busy schedule.
Dr. Jibril Handulah’s answers on 10 interview questions are as follows: Continue reading →
Yesterday, I posted a new list on the in2mentalhealth website. It’s a compilation of all the online available and hard copy intervention/program manuals I know.
The Link: More then 20 Mental Health and MHPSS Manuals for Non-Specialized Settings.
The list starts with a couple of links to free downloads and (not free) hard copies of interventions/program manuals for general mental health care. Then a few in the MHPSS (Mental Health and Psycho-Social Support) field. And the last few manuals are focused on care and programs for children.
If you know other manuals or relevant information please comment on this post or email: in2mentalhealth@gmail.
Attention: Due to time constraints, I was forced to stop updating this list by the end of 2016. The information will be outdated soon. Sorry, I hope you will find your information elsewhere on the internet.
In low resource settings general health workers and lay people will provide a large part of the mental health care. This list starts with a couple of links to free downloads and (not free) hard copies of interventions/program manuals for general mental health care. Then a few in the MHPSS field (Mental Health and Psycho-Social Support). And the last few manuals are focused on care for children. Continue reading →
In January 2013, I had the opportunity to extent my stay in Kenya, after providing a MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières, Doctors Without Borders) mental health and basic counseling training for a group of Somali nurses in Nairobi. After these 2 weeks training I arranged a couple of visits and interviews with people working in, or using/surviving, mental health services in Kenya Continue reading →
The GETHealth Summit (Global Education and Technology Health), 6-7 February 2013 in the United Nations, New York City, aimed ‘to bridge the health workforce gap in developing countries through new partnerships between innovators in Global Health Education and Information 
Technology. The Summit brought together leaders in health, education and IT to discuss and develop initiatives designed to empower providers in the most resource-limited communities in the world’. It were very inspiring and entertaining days: About 150 optimistic and dedicated people from around the World, a bulk of knowledge and experience and plenty of successes and recommendations (and a few failures).
I would like to bring across the main messages from this summit in ’20 golden tips’: Continue reading →
What will be the most easy and most effective way to reach and train health workers in the field about mental health treatments? Now we have the WHO mhGAP Intervention Guide, but how to get this guide implemented in all the corners of the world? Printed on paper? Via the internet? Smartphones? SMS and voice platforms? Here’s an overview of what is possible and seems necessary. Continue reading →
By in2mentalhealth
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Posted in in2mentalhealth Blog Posts
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Also tagged developing countries, distance learning, education, elearning, ict4d, ict4e, LMIC, m4e, mental disorders, mental health, mhgap, mhGAP-IG, psychiatry, WHO
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Tanzania is one of the poorest countries in the world with an astonishing shortage in mental health care. And Tanzania hosted the big eLearning-Africa 2011 summit, with all modern cyber techniques exposed and discussed. Do this two facts merge? What can mental health in Tanzania gain with these new technologies in education?
Introduction:
This article is a result of my 7 day trip to Tanzania in May 2011. I attended the eLearning-Africa summit in Dar Es Salaam and visited several organizations in Tanzania in the field of mental health and education: Continue reading →
More then 239.000 extra mental health workers are needed in the South and only 54,5% of the low income countries have psychiatric training facilities! How to fill this gap?
In this article possible eLearning applications in 4 mental health capacity areas in low income countries are investigated. With figures, examples and links the current state of art will be presented. A conclusion will be given (‘Yes, it can’) as well as recommendations for the future.
Discussions, comments and additions are very welcome! Continue reading →
By in2mentalhealth
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Posted in in2mentalhealth Blog Posts
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Also tagged brain drain, counseling, degrees, developing countries, distance learning, e-learning, education, elearning, ict4d, LMICs, low income countries, medical education, mental disorders, mental health, mental illness, mhgap, nurses, psychiatrist, psychiatry, psychology
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