Mental Health

The project in Nigeria will improve diagnosis and treatment of childhood Neurodevelopmental Disorders (NDD) before age three, reducing associated social stigma. Late intervention for childhood NDD often leads to lack of access to education and impaired language ability. The project will incorporate routine surveillance and screening for childhood NDD into Nigeria’s well-established National Programme on Immunization.

Early diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is crucial, as it enables the start of interventions that support the best outcomes for children living with ASD. In Vietnam, ASD is often not recognized, and children with the condition do not receive the support they require to live fulfilled and active lives. This project will bring together expertise from Vietnam, Canada and Australia, to ensure children with ASD are able to access early and affordable services.

For people living with serious mental disorders and intellectual disability, specifically those formerly homeless or living in poverty, institutionalization at state mental health hospitals is often the only option. This overburdened public infrastructure generally only provides psychiatric medication, with no other interventions. This lack of appropriate care limits exit options for patients, ignores long-term needs, decreases recovery outcomes and puts them at risk of spiralling further down into poverty and homelessness.

Experiences in early childhood have long-term effects on children's development; exposure to a safe, secure and nurturing environment promotes children's physical and mental health over the long term. Children's behaviour problems at school are a major concern for Jamaican teachers and corporal punishment is widely used in schools across Jamaica. This project aims to develop and evaluate a training intervention with teachers of 6- and 7-year-old children.

Through this project, young people in Malawi and Zambia will learn what Depression is, gain a better understanding of mental health issues, and how these issues can affect their lives and communities. As young people understand more about Depression, and their attitudes to it change, they may recognize it in their community, or in themselves. We will train teachers, youth leaders, and clinic staff on how to identify and treat depression, so that care is available.

Many low-resource countries have a significant deficit in mental health infrastructure and human resources. Mental health infrastructure in Haiti (pop. 10M), for example, is limited to one psychiatric hospital and one health centre in Port au Prince. These facilities are severely under-resourced and characterized by poor sanitation, lack of medication and excessive use of physical restraints.

In Haiti, the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country still coping with the catastrophic effects of a major earthquake in 2010, there are currently fewer than 30 psychiatrists for more than 10 million people — a population with widespread psychosocial and psychiatric issues.  “Physical and psychological violence are frequent in a child’s life in Haiti — a problem exacerbated by extreme poverty,” says Yves Lecomte, a psychologist and professor at the University of Quebec-TELUQ. He leads a Grand Challenges Canada project to create a network of Haitian community services and caregivers

Promoting mental health, preventing illness and finding care for children in Kenya are of significant importance. This project will adapt and adopt a World Health Organization (WHO) model to enhance health promotion, prevent mental illness and develop appropriate pathways to care that will overcome the unique challenges of working in Kenya.

A multi-dimensional package of interventions, combining social and clinical care, will be delivered through village mental health workers in Thiruporur Block, Kancheepuram district, Tamil Nadu.  The workers will offer counselling in settings appropriate to circumstances, help mental health patients find income-generating activities and access disability allowances and other social entitlements, and initiate activities in response to specific community needs (e.g. provide counselling services from home, start a daycare centre).

In some circumstances, organizations radically outperform expectations given very limited economic resources. In-depth case studies will be undertaken on six Ashoka Fellows (ashoka.org) making inroads in mental health in low- and lower-middle income countries — their implementation strategies, interventions and resource generation/use. The aim: catalyze and cultivate successful social entrepreneurism to address mental health in other low-income contexts.