CREATE will address this gap by developing a locally-viable social business and accompanying evidence-based Recovery-Oriented Psychosocial Rehabilitation Toolkit to employ and support the overall functioning and wellbeing of people living with mental illness.
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Templeton 2
This was a two-phase Randomized Control Trial focusing on long-term health outcomes and dissemination strategies for adolescent character strength interventions.
Phase 1 was a follow-up assessing how the intervention has improved adolescent mental health and interpersonal relationships, as well as school grades.
Phase 2 was a dissemination of three-character strength interventions (growth mindset, gratitude, and value affirmation) in Makueni, Kiambu, and Nairobi counties. The hypothesis was that the brevity and simplicity of character strength interventions will enable them to be effectively and cost-effectively scaled up to reach thousands of youths efficiently in real-world contexts. The interventional trial sought to assess whether the brief character strength intervention improved long-term health outcomes, which outcomes it improved, and whether it could be disseminated for maximum impact at scale. The trial was founded on the assertion that character strength skills could help adolescents deal with the long-term risk of adverse health and academic outcomes, including drug, tobacco and alcohol use; poor sleep, excessive stress, hospitalization; unplanned pregnancy; mental illness; and poor school performance over several years. This way, youths could continue to interact with the world in ways that led to more positive outcomes.

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How is mental health being supported in Africa?
One in every eight people live with a mental health disorder, so if that’s not you, it’s likely to be a close friend or family member. Despite there being a variety of known treatments, globally the majority of people suffering do not receive any medical support. To see how the discussion around mental health is playing out across the African continent, CrowdScience visits Nairobi, Kenya. Presenter Marnie Chesterton is joined by a live audience and panel of experts – psychiatrist David Ndetei, psychotherapist Reson Sindiyo and mental health journalist Dannish Odongo – to get to the heart of what’s going on in our heads. They discuss issues from taboo and superstition around mental health, to the treatment methods being used in Kenya that the rest of the world should know about. For more information, click on the link below to follow the live discussion.

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DEM-SKY PROJECT
In Kenya, many people are currently living with dementia without a formal diagnosis or support; often attributing symptoms to normal ageing, a consequence of past behaviours e.g. stealing from a home that has been protected by witchcraft or being cursed. Dementia screening is not common within Kenya and healthcare workers are not well equipped to detect dementia in patients. Improving the supply (or opportunity) of dementia screening within the region may promote uptake, thus leading to more people to seek a formal diagnosis and subsequently receive support within the Kenyan healthcare system.
Community Healthcare Workers (CHWs) have successfully demonstrated their value in delivering health interventions within Kenya and have strong links within local communities. Through leveraging this resource, we will deliver dementia screening to older adults (≥ 60 years) within Makueni County, Kenya over a 6-month period through a study entitled; “Integration and evaluation of a community-level dementia screening programme in Kenya (DEM-SKY)”. This study has been funded by the DAVOS Alzheimer’s Collaborative (DAC).
We purpose to evaluate the effectiveness and feasibility of the study by understanding the adoption, implementation and continuation of the study, using questionnaires and interviews on the study participants. Through gaining perspectives of different stakeholders involved in the programme (i.e., older adults, CHWs, hospital staff and trainers), it ensures that we understand the reason for successful (or unsuccessful) delivery.

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The create project

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Genetics and Genomics
We are venturing into genetics and genomics to identify the Biomarkers of mental and neurological illnesses like bipolar disorder, epilepsy and autism.
The above do not necessarily cover everything that we do. We accommodate anybody with a research proposal with the potential to make a positive contribution towards making affordable and evidence-based mental health services available and accessible to everyone.

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Cost-effective biological and psychosocial Interventions for the various types of mental illnesses and substance use disorders
The high cost of mental health service is one of the main barriers to access in many low and middle income countries.
Our ultimate goal is to develop affordable evidence-based mental health and substance use interventions and services that are available and accessible.

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Suicide
We focus on the identification of suicide predictors by identifying risk and protective factors for suicide, and barriers and facilitators to uptake of services. This information is key in informing policy and interventions toward the prevention of suicide.

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School mental health including substance abuse
Poor mental health in school going children has been directly related to school dropout, difficulties in learning, behavioral problems, poor performance in school and truancy. Schools provide a great setting to promote mental well-being, prevent mental illness, facilitate early identification and intervention for children with mental illnesses and combat stigma associated with mental illness. Substance abuse also continues to be highly prevalent in the school setting with opportunity for induction into substance abuse.
Our work in this area focuses on mental health integration in schools as well as developing interventions that prevent early onset of mental illnesses and address risk of substance abuse.

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An Integrated Approach to Non-Communicable Diseases Interventions
We conduct research on the integration of mental health in the treatment and management of chronic non-communicable diseases such as:
- Diabetes
- Hypertension
- Cancer

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Community Mental Health
This is our core priority. We seek to take mental health to the level of the individual and the family
This is our core priority. We seek to take mental health to the level of the individual and the family; to their homes or to the nearest point of care such as the community dispensary, health centre or outreach point. We take a cross-sectional, multi-disciplinary and multi-stakeholder approach that seeks to identify and engage with all community stakeholders and all community physical and human resources who have contact with people with mental disorders. This involves both formal and informal sector administrators, opinion leaders and policy makers as well as the integration of different disciplines such as psychiatry, counselling, clinical psychology, nursing, human rights, health economics, anthropology, social science among many more. We align our approach on the MhGAP Intervention Guide and the WHO Mental Health Action Plan 2013-2014.