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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.

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.