How MHFA Helps You Respond in Crisis and Non-crisis Situations
We learn how to help ourselves and each other if an injury or illness happens – pressure to stop bleeding, ibuprofen for a fever, going to the doctor for medication. But if someone you know is experiencing a mental health or substance use challenge, it can be difficult to know the right thing to do or say.
Home-based psychosocial wellbeing activities for children, teens and parents
School closings, sick friends and family members, isolation at home – these and other factors can cause
anxiety and stress for children during a crisis, including a global health pandemic or conflict. This guide aims to increase children’s resilience and wellbeing through activities that can be done in the
home with a little support from parents and caregivers. The activities outlined in this book will support
stress management, emotional learning, creativity, parent/caregiver – child relationships, relaxation and
problem-solving techniques, allowing open discussions around difficulties while also increasing individual capacity to cope in fun and creative ways.
MIND MATTERS Lessons from past crises for child and adolescent mental health during COVID-19
“Too many children and young people, rich and poor alike, in all four corners of the world are experiencing mental ill health as we have never seen before. This is the silent emergency of our times. It has no borders and requires urgent attention”. Henrietta H Fore
One area of child development that is most affected by the pandemic is child and youth mental health and well-being, the umbrella term used to describe psychosocial and emotional wellbeing. Although the term ‘youth mental health’ by itself does not have either a negative or positive connotation, it is used in reference to mental disorders among children and adolescents such as psychosis, anxiety, depression and eating disorders. Concern for youth mental health was rising before the pandemic, with global prevalence rates of common disorders already very high. Although comprehensive data on mental health since COVID-19 struck is hard to come by, emerging data and studies suggest that the pandemic is exacerbating many common mental disorders.
The Human Aspect
Learn from hundreds of people from around the world, that has opened-up and been vulnerable so that you can connect, in the world’s first life experience library. Search through and explore now and you will find hundreds of in-dept video interviews evolving around the raw answers to these 3 questions:
1. What has been your life’s toughest challenge?
2. How did you overcome it?
3. What have you learned?.
Particularly relevant for MHHRI is the collection of interviews with people who have experienced war and conflict – https://thehumanaspect.com/?category=War%20%26%20conflict#feed
Achieving universal health coverage for mental disorders
“A key element of the field of global mental health is the design and evaluation of innovative strategies for integrating cost effective pharmacological and psychosocial interventions in primary healthcare. The evidence from this work, from a range of contexts including high income countries, is showing the way to integration. A theme across this evidence is the placement of non-specialised providers (including peers, community health workers, and nurses) in primary healthcare and community settings.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6753845/#!po=32.1429
Mental Health Among Displaced People and Refugees: Making the Case for Action at The World Bank Group
“Forcibly displaced people’s mental health needs have often been neglected in response plans. Yet meeting these needs is critical to help displaced persons overcome trauma and rebuild their lives. Without appropriate mental health care, forcibly displaced people will often be unable to benefit fully from other forms of support that are provided to them. […] A shared commitment is needed from national and international actors to champion mental health parity in the provision of health and social services, including in humanitarian emergencies. High priority should go to identifying alternative sources of financing for mental health parity in health systems.”
https://www.mhinnovation.net/sites/default/files/downloads/resource/WBG_Web_MHDP_2017.pdf
TED Talk: Why I train grandmothers to treat depression
“Dixon Chibanda is one of 12 psychiatrists in Zimbabwe – for a population of more than 16 million. Realizing that his country would never be able to scale traditional methods of treating those with mental health issues, Chibanda helped to develop a beautiful solution powered by a limitless resource: grandmothers. In this extraordinary, inspirational talk, learn more about the friendship bench program, which trains grandmothers in evidence-based talk therapy and brings care, and hope, to those in need.”
Guided self-help intervention reduces refugees’ psychological distress and improves wellbeing in humanitarian crises
| Guided self-help intervention reduces refugees’ psychological distress and improves wellbeing in humanitarian crises “First randomised trial of its kind finds multimedia guided self-help intervention can be delivered rapidly to large numbers of people in low-resource humanitarian settings by non-specialists with minimal training. […] The study is the first randomised trial of a guided self-help group intervention in a low-resource humanitarian setting. Although longer follow-up is needed to determine the long-term effects of the intervention, the authors say that guided self-help could be a promising first-line strategy to address the vast gap in mental health support in areas where humanitarian access is difficult, such as South Sudan and Syria. |
It’s Torture Not Therapy | A global overview of conversion therapy: practices, perpetrators, and the role of states
The objective of this report is to compile information on the practices, practitioners and roles of states in conducting, supporting, promoting and acquiescing in conversion therapy. This research is intended to provide a framework for examining the practice of conversion therapy through the lens of state obligations to prevent and prosecute torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment (also ill-treatment) and to provide redress to victims.
Despite this growing trend, little information is readily available on the global breadth and scope of conversion therapy, which often occurs in the private sphere and represents a set of diverse acts from psychotherapy to ‘corrective’ violence. To our knowledge, the August 2019 report of OutRight Action International is the first comprehensive global report, based on 489 surveys across 80 countries, and convincingly establishes the existence of conversion therapy as a worldwide problem.
https://irct.org/uploads/media/IRCT_research_on_conversion_therapy.pdf
Webinar: SR 1325 / Rehabilitation and reintegration for survivors of Gender Based Violence
Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/3758579911
More information here