9 June 2021
Dear readers,
Welcome to another edition of Global Mental Health Unboxed, and welcome to new subscribers, too. This roundup is now going to over 250 subscribers and I have received your positive feedback on its usefulness - nothing could make me happier. I hope the jobs, publications, resources and events described here are of use to you in your global mental health journey.
Any further feedback and suggestions you want to make are always eagerly awaited at manolova.gergana@gmail.com and I will be happy to consider including your materials, job ads, publications and contributions here.
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Yours,
Gergana
Events in Global Mental Health
The event calendar for 2021 is updated and you can keep track of it at globallyminded.org. Most of the events this year are taking place online and there is a serious question mark hanging over those announced to be in person. The online events are announced on a very short timeline and I often put them on the events list only 2-3 days before they are due, so I would recommend you keep checking the list regularly to see what is coming up.
10 June - Online Launch of the WHO Guidance and technical packages on community mental health services: Promoting person-centred and rights-based approaches by the World Health Organization
Any new publication by the WHO in the field of mental health is worth considering, given the intense consultation processes going nowadays, but this is an especially interesting one. WHO has been getting behind non-specialist training and task shifting since 2008, when the mental health Gap Action Plan (mhGAP) was launched, and this is shaping up to be another step forward which will reverberate across the global mental health field. Notably, the focus is on person-centred and rights-based services, which is more and more in line with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), our current beacon for mental health care.
14 June - From Europe and Beyond: Global Perspectives on the Draft Additional Protocol to the Oviedo Convention by Mental Health Europe
And continuing with the rights-based theme, the Council of Europe, a body which covers some 47 countries in the European region, is working on a protocol to add to its Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine, which will contravene the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities by allowing for involuntary treatment and placement in psychiatry. This is seen as a step backwards in deinstitutionalisation, as well as creating conditions for conflict of international obligations. European advocacy organisations have been raising awareness about this serious problem, and are also supported by the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and two Special Rapporteurs. Read some position statements here.
Jobs in Global Mental Health
The jobs listed here might not be advertised as being in global mental health and the decision for including them is mine alone. Unless otherwise stated, I have found out about them through job sites, social media posts, other newsletters and so on, so I have no more information on them than publicly available and you should refer to those listed in the job ad.
Some experience (2-5 years) necessary
Mental Health Research Coordinator, Possible Health, Nepal (Nepali citizens)
Research Associate in Digital Mental Health, University of Manchester, UK - by 10 June
Mental Health, Handicap International, Mozambique - by 13 June
Research Associate at King’s College London, UK - by 13 June
Research Associate ‘Mental Capacity and Personal Finances: A Qualitative Study of Assessment and Support’, University of Manchester, UK - by 21 June
Research Associate in Public Health Economic Modelling, University of Sheffield, UK - by 28 June
5+ years of experience necessary
Senior Officer, United for Global Mental Health, remote
Head of Operations, United for Global Mental Health, UK
Spécialiste Santé Mentale et Soutien Psychosocial / MHPSS Specialist, Handicap International, France - by 20 June
Associate Director (Mental Health), NHS Benchmarking Network, UK - by 22 June
Technical Officer, Noncommunicable Diseases, Risk Factors and Mental Health, WHO, Dominican Republic - by 28 June
Chair in Dementia, Curtin University, Australia - by 1 July
Mental Health Professor, up to 3 positions, Curtin University, Australia - by 1 July
Resources in Global Mental Health
A section for various opportunities, databanks, information sources that may prove helpful
This month the spotlight is on two conferences from the past months, in case you haven’t had the time to catch them live. You know when they say: “This session will be recorded and we will post the recording later…” The advantages of watching the videos is that you can always pause to do a bit of research into the context, check out that paper which got mentioned, or get another cup of tea or coffee, while getting the full benefit of the ideas and insights sparked by these speakers.
Social Change, Inequality and Mental Health: Shifting the Narrative - conference by the ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health at King's College London (23-25 March 2021)
With over 13 hours of recordings, there are many videos to choose from, but if you want a clear examination on the intersection of the biological and the social in public mental health, start with Session 1, where Prof Sandro Galea set the tone for the conference with his simple exposition on depression.
Mental health and the pandemic: living, caring, acting! - European Mental Health Awareness Week 2021 conference by the European Commission (10 May 2021)
The one-day conference was designed to bring together advocates, people with lived experience, professionals, politicians and health managers, and it succeeded rather well. I especially liked the effort made to showcase lived experience in the pandemic - watch the testimonials videos - and the two panels on ‘responding’, which covered people with pre-existing mental health needs and modifications that health systems needed to make to cover mental health needs better.
Latest Publications in Global Mental Health
The selection of publications ultimately reflects my personal knowledge and preferences, but I have no intended bias. Feel free to send me publications you consider interesting or that you would like to be featured.
An interesting, dense read on a proposed framework for cultural adaptation of interventions to various contexts, illustrated by a study implementing Problem Management Plus in Nepal. The detailed step-by-step list considers many activities which sometimes get glossed over in the rush to roll out an intervention, such as the in-depth review, the qualitative interviews with informants and the expert work needed to adapt materials, all before starting even the practice rounds. In fact, what often is seen as the key part of interventions - the delivery and the process evaluation - are squeezed into a single penultimate step, a reminder that work should start a long way before the field workers get out. The process of improvement is considered iterative and reliant on constant feedback. The authors note that currently we don't know which parts of adaptation are the most important, and this will probably vary for different contexts, but it is noteworthy that so many environmental factors are included in this framework, making it a suitable planning and teaching aid.
Barriers and drivers to stakeholder engagement in global mental health projects
Exploring 29 of the projects which were funded under the previous round of Grand Challenges Canada Global Mental Health, this study looks at the essential yet complex process of engaging stakeholders, through in-depth interviews of implementers. The results reflect the reality of mental health work on the ground, especially in engaging service users, and show the importance of cultivating relationships and giving them time to develop and settle. The balancing of varying purposes and goals is clearly made harder by contextual difficulties such as lack of infrastructure and prioritising survival over development. Stigma related to mental health work was also one of the themes emerging from the data - although, given that the study took place between 2014 and 2017, we can maybe hope that the higher global profile of mental health will reduce this challenge for the next round of GCC Global Mental Health projects, which will probably start later this year. It would be interesting to compare notes on barriers and challenges to stakeholder engagement in several years.
Unravelling ‘low-resource settings’: a systematic scoping review with qualitative content analysis
Not exactly global mental health - but this systematic scoping review, which, using rehabilitation as a vehicle, explores what lies behind the often-used term 'low-resource settings' attracted my attention with the interesting conclusions on these settings’ features.
*Social media image courtesy of Pexels
The Language Corner
This Language Corner relies on interactions with you, the readers, to build an entertaining little multi-way dictionary of global mental health terms. Needless to say, terms don’t always translate equally well and might evoke different emotions in the different languages.
This issue - what is the mantra of the mental health professionals and how does it sound in various languages? Please send in more languages in the comments!
Arabic (read right-to-left) - فلا صحة بدون صحة نفسية [Fi la sihat bidun sihat nafsia]
Bulgarian - Няма здраве без психично здраве [N’yama zdráve bez psihítʃno zdráve]
English - There is no health without mental health
French - Il n'y a pas de santé sans santé mentale
Russian - Без психического здоровья - нет здоровья [Bes psikhitʃeskovo zdarovya net zdarovya]
Spanish - No hay salud sin salud mental
Chinese - 没有精神健康就没有健康 [Méiyǒu jīngshén jiànkāng jiù méiyǒu jiànkāng]
Ukrainian- Немає здоров'я без психічного здоров’я.