Community-Based Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Resource Collection Toolkit

A guide for supporting community-led child protection processes

The purpose of this Guide is to offer a sustainable approach that is led by communities rather than by experts or non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Community led approaches can take many forms, but all of them feature community power, dialogue, and decision-making-including by children. Community-led approaches generate high levels of community ownership, enable stronger harm prevention and sustainability, and decrease dependency on NGOs and externally-led child protection initiatives.

Operational Guidelines: Community Based Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Humanitarian Settings: Three-tiered support for children and families (Field Test Version)

These detailed guidelines offer practical information and tools to implement community-based MHPSS interventions to address the protection and psychosocial support needs of children and families, in parallel with tailored mental health interventions for those most in need. They help agencies working with children to support and promote safe, nurturing environments for children’s recovery, psychosocial well-being, and protection. They provide a framework for engaging actors at all levels (children, caregivers, families and community service providers) to design and implement MHPSS strategies that are locally relevant, comprehensive and sustainable. The Operational Guidelines are accompanied by a Compendium of Resources (see Linked Resources section). This document has been replaced with a new version: Global Multisectoral Operational Framework for Mental Health and Psychosocial Support of Children, Adolescents and Caregivers Across Settings [Field Demonstration Version] (see Linked Resources section).

Community-based approaches to mental health and psychosocial support programmes: A guidance note

This brief guidance note explains community-based approaches to Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in emergencies, and the importance of viewing emergency-affected people as active participants in improving individual and collective well-being. It highlights the importance of community-based approaches for encouraging recovery and resilience, and for contributing to restoring and/or strengthening collective structures and systems essential to daily life and well-being. It gives brief guidance on how to assess, plan, implement and evaluate community-based approaches to MHPSS. It highlights ethical dilemmas and practical difficulties and presents ethical guidelines for implementation.

Community-based protection and mental health and psychosocial support

The purpose of this document is to help community-based protection actors and MHPSS practitioners understand the implications of their work for one another’s eld of expertise and how they can together contribute to the wellbeing and protection of people affected by forced displacement.

Guidance on community mental health services: Promoting person-centered and rights-based approaches

This guidance is a set of publications that provides information and support to all stakeholders who wish to develop or transform their mental health system and services to align with international human rights standards including the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The main reference source for all stakeholders is this document, which provides a detailed description of person-centred and human rights-based approaches in mental health, examples of good practice services around the world and recommendations for integrating such services into national health and social care systems and services. This comprehensive document is accompanied by a set of seven technical packages focused on specific categories of mental health services and guidance for setting up new services. This guidance aims to empower governments, policy-makers, health and social care professionals, nongovernmental organizations, organizations of persons with disabilities and other stakeholders, to introduce and scale up mental health services that protect and promote human rights, ultimately improving the lives of people with mental health conditions and psychosocial disabilities everywhere.

Improving Well-being Through Education: Integrating Community Based Psychosocial Support into Education in Emergencies

This document describes the use of the Community Based approach to Psychosocial Support in educational settings and presents FCA’s experiences in improving well-being through education in various countries. It offers practical examples on how access to education and wellbeing of children and youth can be improved during conflicts by involving communities.

Users Guide for the Community Participatory Evaluation Tool: A Participatory Method for the Design, Monitoring, and Evaluation of Community Level Programs for Children in Emergencies

The Community Participatory Evaluation Tool (CPET) is a rapid participatory method that can be used to develop indicators of children’s psychosocial well-being as part of a plan to support community level child protection and psychosocial support activities in accordance with local vision. To that end, it elicits community concepts of the optimal flow of development, as well as the coping mechanisms that families use to enable children to grow up well in “normal” times. The tool can then be used to measure progress toward the restoration of positive coping mechanisms, the identification and elimination of negative ones, as well as the degree to which children are able to meet developmental milestones over time. When given the opportunity to monitor and evaluate programs designed on the basis of their specifications, community members can help to ensure that program approaches are effective and to modify ineffective ones. This document is a brief, practical guide to using the CPET during an emergency and afterwards. For a fuller understanding, consult the referenced article from which this method is derived, as well as the additional references footnoted below and at the end of the text. The document contains the following sections: – Introduction – First Steps- Preparing to Start a CPET Exercise – Forming Focus Groups – Interview Guides – Next Steps- Making the Information Useful – The Participatory Evaluation Tool- Sample Charts – Additional Activities for Child and Adolescent Engagement – Brief reference list Adapted from: Bragin, M. (2005). The Community Participatory Evaluation Tool for Psychosocial Programs: A guide to implementation. Intervention: International Journal of Mental Health, Psychosocial Work and Counselling in Areas of Armed Conflict, 3(1), 3–24.