India S Mental Healthcare Act 2017

This book comprehensively discusses the background to the passing of India's revolutionary Mental Healthcare Act, 2017, offering a detailed description of the Act itself and a rigorous analysis in the context of the CRPD and the World Health Organization (WHO) standards for mental health law. It examines the fine balance, between complying with the CRPD while still delivering practical, humane, and implementable legislation. It explores how this legislation was shaped by the WHO standards and provides insights into areas where the Indian legislators deviated from these guidelines and why. Taking India as an example, it highlights what is possible in other low- and middle-income countries. Further it covers key issues in mental health, identifying potential competing interests and exploring the difficulties and limitations of international guidelines. The book is a valuable resource for psychiatrists, nurses, social workers, non-governmental organizations and all mental healthcare workers in India and anyone studying human rights law.

This publication highlights key issues and principles to be considered in the drafting, adoption and implementation of mental health legislation and best practice in mental health services. It contains examples of diverse experiences and practices, as well as extracts of laws and other legal documents from a range of different countries, and a checklist of key policy components. Three main elements of effective mental health legislation are identified, relating to context, content and process.

Collects together data compiled from 177 World Health Organization Member States/Countries on mental health care. Coverage includes policies, plans and laws for mental health, human and financial resources available, what types of facilities providing care, and mental health programmes for prevention and promotion.

Provides practical solutions for ending coercion in mental health care and realizing the universal right to legal capacity.

This book discusses approaches used by NGOs in formulating and implementing mental health care in the community in the context of high treatment gap, insufficient public expenditure on health, human resource shortages, heterogeneity of communities as well as cultural beliefs in India. It uses a qualitative case study approach to document and analyse the work of some major NGO-run community mental health programmes in India, all of which cater to vulnerable populations and are in different and diverse regional settings. It casts the spotlight on envisioning community mental health in policy and law, implementation by the government, how it is practised by select NGOs and the challenges involved in programme implementation. In doing so, it hopes to understand the trigger factors that have led to NGOs embarking on community mental health programmes: how needs of the community are understood, the funding mechanisms, how the human resource gap was addressed, type of networks formed in the community, therapeutic and social interventions, accountability mechanisms, achievements and limitations of the programmes. This book is for students and researchers in the fields of social work and psychology, and NGOs, government and funding agencies, and for those interested in understanding and working with community mental health programmes.

Human Rights and Disability Advocacy brings together perspectives from civil society representatives who played key roles in the drafting of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, shedding light on the emergent practices of a "new diplomacy" and the larger enterprise of human rights advocacy at the international level.

Why write another book on ethics? As practitioners we are involved both in the design and delivery of services to people with mental health problems. In common with all other professionals, our work has led to the experience of ethical dilemmas: typically, these have involved major confrontations, either with our col leagues or our consciences. This book, however, is not limited to a discussion of such major themes. Rather, we have tried to use a broader canvas: ethics, in our view, is really about the judgement of right and wrong in ordinary, everyday life. Ethics are highly personal: we fashion our own personal code from our experi ence of others, and from the 'tests' which bring meaning to our lives. Such experiences shape our individual values. We bring these codes and values to our work. We are not always aware of their influence in our dealings with people. Although we may not always be aware of it, all our actions pose an ethical question. Given that our work involves us in helping others to live ordinary, satisfying lives, this challenge heightens the intensity of our ethical dilemmas. This is most evident where our personal code conflicts with the implicit code of the health setting.