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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.

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.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct3j7j

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.

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.