"Our Stories"-Living and coping with Schizophrenia in India. The Community Care fOr People with Schizophrenia in India (COPSI) study. In Chennai (www.sangath.com)
"Our Stories"-Living and coping with Schizophrenia in India. The Community Care fOr People with Schizophrenia in India (COPSI) study. (www.sangath.com)
A large Wagnerian grandmother. A great-aunt known as 'the Buchenwald chicken'. Shame and misery on the sports field. A club-footed father who disappeared to the golf course every weekend. How do these experiences lead to a career in psychology? Able-Bodied is a unique account of how being the son of a disabled man and the product of an eccentric family brought Leslie Swartz to a professional life working with disability issues. At the heart of this tale is a moving account of a complex, troubled, but loving father-son relationship, a relationship that spurred a lifetime of trying to understand and come to grips with what different bodies and different abilities mean for us all. With wit, compassion, frankness and irreverence, Swartz considers the challenges faced by families, academics, institutions and everyone trying to make a positive difference to society. Poignant and often hilarious, Able-Bodied is a tale of conflict, achievement, pain and triumph. It is a fascinating blend of personal narrative, anecdote and reflection on society, medicine and ethics.
For more information, or to attain a copy, please contact the author at: lswartz@sun.ac.za
PLOS Medicine Policy Forum
articles provide a platform for health policy makers from around the world to discuss the challenges and opportunities in improving health care to their constituencies.
Grand Challenges in Global Mental Health: Integration in Research, Policy, and Practice
Citation: Collins PY, Insel TR, Chockalingam A, Daar A, Maddox YT (2013) Grand Challenges in Global Mental Health: Integration in Research, Policy, and Practice. PLoS Med 10(4): e1001434. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001434
Published: April 30, 2013
Summary Points
Mental illnesses frequently co-occur with peripartum conditions, HIV-related disease, and non-communicable diseases. Care for mental disorders should be integrated into primary care and other global health priority programs.
Integration of care for mental, neurological, and substance use (MNS) disorders should (1) occur through intersectoral collaboration and health system-wide approaches; (2) use evidence-based interventions; (3) be implemented with sensitivity to environmental influences; and (4) attend to prevention and treatment across the life course.
Integration of care for MNS disorders with care for other conditions can occur through assimilation of activities, policies, or organizational structures at local, national, and global levels.
Plans for health-related development targets post-2015 should consider the tremendous burden of disability associated with MNS disorders and co-morbid conditions.
This paper is the first in a series of five articles providing a global perspective on integrating mental health.
This is an open-access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication.
Funding: No funding sources were used for preparation of this manuscript.
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Abbreviations: DALY, disability adjusted life year; GBD, global burden of disease; GCGMH, Grand Challenges in Global Mental Health; LMIC, low- and middle-income country; MNS, mental, neurological, and substance use; mhGAP, Mental Health Gap Action Programme; MDG, Millennium Development Goal; NCD, non-communicable disease; NIMH, National Institute of Mental Health; NGO, non-governmental organization; WHO, World Health Organization
Provenance: Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
There are currently two high-level discussions occuring within the United Nations structure that will decide the future of mental health within the global health and post-MDG development agenda.
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The Post-2015 High Level Panel of Eminent Persons will meet from 24-27 March in Bali, Indonesia. In this meting the panel will focus on financing and implementation of a new global development agenda. The UN, via it's online civil society portal called The World We Want, invites you to add your voice to the same questions the panel will be discussing in Bali. Add Your Voice!
The Movement for Global Mental Health encourages it's members to post to the website to keep mental health in the discussions.
Only a limited selection of civil society groups and interests are represented in the face-to-face meetings at the High Level Panel meetings however the UN has made serious efforts to engage the global population via the internet.
The Panel will submit a report containing recommendations to the UN Secretary-General in May/June 2013 which will subsequently contribute to the UN Secretary General’s report to the UN MDG review summit in September 2013.
Go to the website www.worldwewant2015.org/ and register to enter the discussion.
Go to the Bali2015 conference discussion thread at www.worldwewant2015.org/bali2015
Click "Add content", and "Discussion" on the right side of the page
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The UN High Level Meeting on disability and development aims to advance a disability-inclusive development agenda towards 2015 and beyond and is expected to produce an action-oriented outcome document. The consultation began on 8 March and runs for three weeks until Thursday, 28 March. The final High Level Meeting will take place on 23 September 2013.
To participate, please visit the online forums, here, and post your views about mental health and the post-2015 development agenda. You will also be invited to register here www.worldwewant2015.org/join
The Centre for Global Mental Health (CGMH), a collaboration between the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Kings College London, recently launched the first of their quarterly newsletters. The CGMH will publish a newsletter every 3 months, providing information on the Centre’s current activities, including recent and upcoming events, seminars and courses; new CHMG publications and resources, highlights of the Centre in the public media and more general CGMH news.
Click on the following link to view the September issue: http://us4.campaign-archive2.com/?u=23d44e3fc49b60b941ae4103e&id=234b6c6bbb&e=bf73f339fb Click on the following link to sign-up to receive the Centre’s quarterly newsletter: http://www.centreforglobalmentalhealth.org/sign
Content: Brief country profile Kenya, overview mental health care Kenya, report on meetings with USPKenya, Mathari State Mental Hospital, BasicNeeds Kenya, Outspan hospital counseling services, AMHF (Africa Mental Health Foundation), mental health activist Sitawa Wafula, Tawakal psycho-trauma clinic for people from Somalia, Peter C. Alderman trauma project, and more. Info, links, few pictures, conclusions.
In January 2013, I had the opportunity to extent my stay in Kenya, after providing a MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières, Doctors Without Borders) mental health and basic counseling training for a group of Somali nurses in Nairobi. After these 2 weeks training I arranged a couple of visits and interviews with people working in, or using/surviving, mental health services in Kenya. I wanted to meet the people I knew for quite a while via internet (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, my blog) and I wanted to satisfy my curiosity. I wanted to get some insight into the mechanisms and contexts in mental health care Kenya. Find positive vibes, plans and developments. Fostering hope, but also knowing where one must start and invest, in order to achieve improvements.
Just Posted: Like a Death Sentence
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Human Rights Watch, 2 Ovtober 2012
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On the negative aspects of HR and MH in Ghana
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Includes a simple report and a full version of the report, plus a brief video.
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Note: It would also be helpful to see some of the improvements and positive aspects of care that are happening, including a report on the work of the Ministry of Health and NGOs like BasicNeeds Ghana.
No Health Withoutt Mental Health: Lessons Unlearned
An article consisting of five cogent paragrpahs on MH and NCDs,
Bulletin of the World Health Organization, January 2013--91: 3-3A
CEO of Member Care Associates and Coordinator of the Mental Health and Psychosocial Working Group of the Geneva-based NGO Forum for Health, Kelly O’Donnell, has recently written three resource articles on global mental health (GMH). The purpose of these articles is to provide user-friendly overviews of the field of global mental health, helping to orient people to this domain, especially students and practitioners in the mental health and overall health fields.
Resource 1. Global Mental Health: A Resource Map for Connecting and Contributing (Psychology International, July 2011).
This brief article provides a 60 minute overview of GMH via links to 10 written/multimedia resources on the web. It’s a great way to quickly see the big picture.
Click on this link to access the article: http://www.apa.org/international/pi/2011/07/global-health.aspx
Resource 2. Global Mental Health: Finding Your Niches and Networks (Psychology International, March 2012).
This brief article builds upon the first article. It identifies 10 overlapping areas of GMH (niche-nets) with links to current web resources for each area.
Click on this link to access the article: http://www.apa.org/international/pi/2012/03/global-health.aspx
Resource 3. Global Mental Health: A Resource Primer for Exploring the Domain (International Perspectives in Psychology: Research, Practice, Consultation, July 2012).
This is a major research article with an extensive listing of GMH resources, prioritizing those from the last 10 years. The resources are categorized into six areas: organizations, publications, conferences, training, human rights, and humanitarian. It is also foundational for the previous two articles as well as the new web site, GMH-Map—part of a collaborative project to identify and share GMH resources widely.
Click on this link to access the article: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxnbWhtYXB8Z3g6ZjBmYTI4MTFmMDNhZWU4
The time to change is now. Those are the words of the MGMH Call to Action. And the people to make those changes are ourselves. Our Movement is not about pointing fingers, it is about taking responsibility and taking action. User-led advocacy is growing in strength in low- and middle-income countries, and MGMH is proud to count several user advocates and groups from Africa and Asia among our members. We welcome you to share your experiences of advocacy by submitting an activity form, or to coordinate members around specific advocacy goals, by using our Forum page.