Guidance On Community Mental Health Services

The Executive Summary of the WHO Guidance and technical packages on community mental health services: Promoting person-centred and rights-based approaches outlines the 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 the Guidance on community mental health services: Promoting person-centred and rights-based approaches this document provides a detailed description of person-centred and human rights-based approaches in mental health, and summary 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 good practice in mental health services that protect and promote human rights, ultimately improving the lives of people with mental health conditions and psychosocial disabilities everywhere.

There are wide inconsistencies between, and even within, countries in how community-orientated care is defined and interpreted. The analysis presented in this book take as a starting point an evidence-based balanced care model in which services are provided in community settings close to the populations served, with hospital stays being reduced as far as possible, usually located in acute wards in general hospitals. The surprising conclusion from the research is that the same problems arise in all countries, regardless of resource status, and thus the recommendations of this book apply to mental health provision everywhere. This book reviews the implementation of community-orientated care using the balanced care model. It summarizes the steps, obstacles and mistakes that have been encountered in the implementation of community mental health care worldwide and presents guidelines on how to avoid them. It proposes realistic and achievable recommendations for the development and implementation of community-orientated mental health care over the next ten years. These guidelines will be of practical use to psychiatrists and other mental health and public health practitioners at all levels worldwide, including policy makers, commissioners, funders, non-governmental organisations, service users and carers. A core message of the book is that the mental health sector will more powerfully advocate for better services in future through strong and unified alliances, especially with powerful representation from consumer/service user and carer groups. Community-orientated care draws on a wide range of practitioners, providers, care and support systems (both professional and non-professional), though particular components may play a larger or lesser role in different settings depending on the local context and the available resources, especially trained staff. Research by a WPA task force has demonstrated that most of the challenges are common and global, but with local variations. The book is therefore relevant to psychiatrists and mental health workers in developed countries who are trying to deliver better health care on reduced budgets and for those in the developing economies who are in the position to modernise their mental health care. It provides clear, concise guidance on policy and practice decisions, learning from what has and has not worked in regions in the world. The book contains many tables documenting the evidence, supported by an essential reference list, and a Key Points summary for each chapter. Highly Commended in the Psychiatry section of the 2012 BMA Book Awards.

A majority of people living in rural areas and urban slums worldwide have minimal access to healthcare. Without information about what to give a child with stomach flu, how to relieve the pain of a broken bone, and how to work against increased substance abuse in a village, the whole community suffers. Children, adolescents, adults, and older people are all affected by the lack of what many of us view as basic healthcare, such as vaccination, pain killers, and contraceptives. To improve living conditions and life expectancy, the people in urban slums and rural areas need access to a trained health care worker, and a functioning clinic. Setting up Community Health and Development Programmes in Low and Middle Income Settings illustrates how to start, develop, and maintain a health care programme in poor areas across the world. The focus is on the community, and how people can work together to improve health through sanitation, storage of food, fresh water, and more. Currently, there is a lack of 17 million trained health care workers worldwide. Bridging the gap between medical professionals and people in low income areas, the aim of this book is for a member of the community to receive training and become the health care worker in their village. They will then in turn spread information and set up groups working to improve health. The book also explains in detail how communities can work alongside experts to ensure that practices and processes work effectively to bring the greatest impact. Copiously illustrated and written in easy-to-read English, this practical guide is designed to be extremely user friendly. Ideal for academics, students, programme managers, and health care practitioners in low and middle income settings worldwide, it is an evidence based source full of examples from the field. Setting up Community Health and Development Programmes in Low and Middle Income Settings shows how a community can both identify and solve its own problems, and in that way own its future. This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC 4.0 International licence.

The organisation of mental health services has an important bearing on the effectiveness of service delivery and on the achievement of objectives of national mental health policies. This publication does not aim to prescribe a single model for service organisation, as this depends on the social, cultural, political and economic context within individual countries; rather it seeks to highlight examples of good practice in successful service delivery models in order to provide guidance to countries in different regions of the world on the key issues involved. This publication is also available as part of a set of eight mental health policy and service publications containing practical guidance to assist policy-makers and planners in WHO member countries (ISBN 0119894173).

Bringing together treatment and referral advice from existing guidelines, this text aims to improve access to services and recognition of common mental health disorders in adults and provide advice on the principles that need to be adopted to develop appropriate referral and local care pathways.