Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS)

Mental Health And Psychosocial Support

Refugees and migrants face harsh conditions that put their mental health under significant stress. While many of them show remarkable resilience, some need extra support to rebuild their lives. People fleeing conflict or disaster often experience poor mental health due to experiences in their country of origin, during displacement, and in the host communities. Conditions in refugee camps and settlements, and the wider sociopolitical and economic context of refugees’ lives, create structural conditions that compound the effects of previous adversity. This has been exacerbated by Covid-19 and its devastating effects. Words cannot emphasize enough, the amount of psycho-social stress, forced displacement due to armed conflict, persecution or natural disasters put on individuals, families and communities. Refugees not only experience atrocities prior to their flight, their living conditions in host communities can impose more stress and hardship. And refugees with pre-existing mental health conditions, including depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder and psychosis, often face greater challenges when trying to navigate asylum systems.

Our Mental health and psychosocial support program therefore focuses to address the daily stressors and adversities refugees, migrants and Asylum-seekers face by being grounded in the lived reality of refugee’s lives and addressing issues relevant to them. We advocate for and promote the integration of MHPSS in medical services and primary healthcare and inclusion of refugees into national mental health systems and programming without discrimination. Through Community-Based Protection, we build the capacity of host and refugee communities to manage the mental health and psychosocial well-being of refugees and other residents. Our Child Protection programming ensures that refugee children receive appropriate psychosocial support, including individual, family and group-based interventions. We mobilise and build capacity of communities fight against and respond to Gender Based Violence (GBV) through training and support for prevention and response mechanisms, including case management for survivors. Sporting activities are prioritised through our right to play project as a key ingredient in our mental health and psychosocial support services as well as early child development for refugees. Apart from using the power of sports to help refugees overcome post conflict or disaster trauma and stress, we use sports in the reconstruction of social virtues, personal discipline and raising of self-esteem and confidence.

Relevant Resources

These resources have been developed by UNHCR and WHO to provide universally applicable guidelines and tools for the proper management of mental health and Psychosocial support (MHPSS