"My work for cbm involves increasing access to mental health care by supporting governments and partner NGOs to scale up appropriate services. For cbm partners, this is often through integration of mental health into Community Based Rehabilitation. I also work to increase awareness about mental health issues and reduce stigma and discrimination experienced by people with psychosocial disabilities.
"We have been able to engage with governments in several countries to push through good legislation and policy that will protect the human rights of persons with psychosocial disabilities, and improve the quality of care available. This has often been by helping stakeholders (including service users) to be better organised in self-advocacy.
"Most of the CBR programmes in West Africa now include support for people with psychosocial disabilities, and we have started some practical research aimed at understanding better what works well in this innovative area. A major priority for us is building a strong and independent service user movement that allows people to articulate their needs effectively. It is in this way that systems that are supposed to care for them will truly do so.
"Our aim is to be able to be Partners in building capacity for local professionals and service users. This should enable them to lead effective, sustainable systems of care and get better at meeting the needs of people with psychosocial disabilities, and their families. Working towards genuine inclusion of people with psychosocial disabilities remains the most exciting and powerful means to achieve change in attitudes.
"Service provision remains important in mental health care, as good treatment is often a foundation for effective social interventions. There has been a shift towards supporting a broad network of stakeholders to develop appropriate and sustainable services in their own context. This partnership includes service users and their carers. This empowerment of service users is a very new, and radical, shift in Africa, where the status of persons with disabilities has been very low.
"We are seeking a scale-up of services that meet real needs well (for example being very community-based, not just providing medication). These have to be imaginative, so may include elements that aim to promote empowerment (self-help groups), or vocational/economic interventions."
Learn more about Community Mental Health and cbm
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