OnePIH Cross-Site Mental Health Program
OUR WORK
GLOBAL MENTAL HEALTH
Mental health care remains at the margins of global health delivery: nine in ten people worldwide receive no care for treatable mental health conditions.
Mental disorders are the leading cause of disability globally. Exacerbated by concurrent health, economic, social and environmental crises, organizations must adopt a public health approach to mental health. This approach demands a focus on preparedness and enhanced social resilience, embedding mental health care and support across all sectors and communities beyond the confines of traditional health systems.
Partners In Health (PIH) works to expand mental health care from institutional treatment to community systems, meeting people where they live. Our mission is to provide a preferential option for the poor in health care. For mental health, this means raising the standard of care by integrating mental health into existing community health systems to support those who need it most and reduce mental health disparities between and within nations. By combining clinical and public health approaches, PIH is uniquely positioned to impact global thinking on mental health care delivery within and outside of health systems.
ABOUT OUR PROGRAM
The OnePIH Cross-Site Mental Health Program seeks to improve the lives of the patients and communities we serve by expanding the continuum of mental health and psychosocial support services across all 11 PIH care delivery sites around the globe.
The Many Voices Collaborative (MVC) is the flagship initiative for the Cross-Site Mental Health Program and is a global cross-site grant coordinated by the Cross-Site Mental Health Team. This initiative supports strengthening community-based, primary care, and hospital-linked mental health systems to provide collaborative, comprehensive, community-based mental health services for common, complex, and co-morbid mental health conditions in settings where few to no services are otherwise available.
Our holistic approach to mental health and psychosocial response (MHPSS) is rooted in the 5 S's of PIH: staff, stuff, space, systems, and social support. We align mental health service delivery, training, and research and optimize academic opportunities with partner institutions. Like all things PIH, we partner closely with in-country government officials and leading medical and academic institutions to strengthen local capacity for delivering care. We improve clinical workforce development and well-being through capacity building and clear opportunities for career advancement. We develop, collaborate on, and disseminate best practices to improve care delivery and accompany health systems through research, evidence-based practice, and clinical innovations.
When we connect people, both physically and emotionally, within a community or a family [with] the resources they need, we will be providing them better opportunities.
HISTORY OF OUR PROGRAM
Over a decade of measurable, and innovative global mental health care delivery across our sites has informed the Cross-Site Mental Health Program vision and strategy that has the potential to inform national mental health care scale up in partnership with local communities, governments, and ministries of health. The timeline below details the development of the Cross-Site Mental Health Program vision and implementation model through the establishment of formal mental health teams and programs at 11 PIH sites.
OnePIH Cross-Site Mental Health Program History from 2009-2024
OUR STRATEGY
CROSS-SITE MENTAL HEALTH TEAM STRATEGY TO ACHIEVE UNIVERSAL HEALTH COVERAGE:
CROSS-SITE MENTAL HEALTH TEAM THEORY OF CHANGE
The Cross-Site Mental Health Program is built upon four key pillars that serve as our theory of change for catalyzing mental health equity:
Cross-Site Mental Health Team Pillars
- Mental Health Care Across the Value Chain: Assert quality of care, proximity, and clinical excellence, setting a standard for accompaniment of patients and site-based teams.
- Training and Education: Build the capacity of the next generation of mental health professionals through deepening partnerships with high quality clinical, education, and research institutions, and capacity building.
- Influence with evidence: Continue to improve the value chain approach, measurement of impact, and knowledge sharing through the Cross-Site Mental Health Learning Collaborative, academic publication, and advocacy.
- Replication: Deepen partnerships with governments to scale mental health care delivery models.
OUR IMPACT
Our program fosters innovative and sustainable mental health care at PIH sites around the world. Key accomplishments of our program are showcased below according to the four pillars of our Theory of Change.
OUR CARE DELIVERY SITES
Explore the incredible work of our care delivery sites around the world:
Haiti: Zanmi Lasante (ZL)
Haiti: Zanmi Lasante (ZL). Click to expand.
Psychologists, social workers, nurses, physicians, and CHWs work through a task-sharing model in collaboration with the MOH to integrate mental health services into primary care for a catchment area of over 1.5 million people and as a model for the nation.
Rwanda: Inshuti Mu Buzima (IMB)
Rwanda: Inshuti Mu Buzima (IMB). Click to expand.
Community-based mental health care is provided in rural public primary care systems through psychotherapy, psychosocial rehabilitation, mentorship, training, and supervision.
Peru: Socios En Salud (SES)
Peru: Socios En Salud (SES). Click to expand.
Psychologists integrate mental health care into maternal health, TB, early childhood development, and chronic care programs utilizing digital technology. They support MOH to scale interventions at the national level.
Mexico: Compañeros En Salud (CES)
Mexico: Compañeros En Salud (CES). Click to expand.
Community mental health workers deliver a psychotherapeutic intervention for depression and anxiety, conduct psychoeducation groups, and work with adolescents in the community. Community members promote restorative justice & gender equity via Women's Circles.
PIH Liberia
PIH Liberia. Click to expand.
PIH Liberia is establishing Maryland County as a model for innovative rural mental health service delivery and JJ Dossen Hospital as patients’ and providers’ “hospital of choice.” Close partnerships with community members, traditional healers, lay providers, and facility-level providers strengthen the quality and reach of mental health services. Peers and caregivers lead psychosocial rehabilitation groups, and PIH works with the MOH to revise national mental health policy, informed by the Mental Health Value Chain and Matrix.
PIH Sierra Leone
PIH Sierra Leone. Click to expand.
Psychiatric and psychological care is integrated into the community, primary care, and district levels, and at the national Sierra Leone Psychiatric Teaching Hospital, which hosts the country’s first psychiatric residency program.
Malawi: Abwenzi Pa Za Umoyo (APZU)
Malawi: Abwenzi Pa Za Umoyo (APZU). Click to expand.
Mental health care is integrated into care for patients with chronic conditions. Psychologists and lay counselors provide group psychotherapy for maternal depression.
Lesotho: Bo-Mphato Litšebeletsong Tsa Bophelo
Lesotho: Bo-Mphato Litšebeletsong Tsa Bophelo. Click to expand.
Counselors, nurses, and psychologists deliver psychosocial interventions for integrated care for depression, MDR-TB, and crisis response. The team helps lead the Technical Working Group for the first national mental health policy and strategic plan.
PIH Kazakhstan
PIH Kazakhstan. Click to expand.
Psychologists and social workers integrate depression care for patients with MDR-TB and implement substance use prevention activities for university students.
PIH Navajo Nation/COPE
PIH Navajo Nation/COPE. Click to expand.
The Community Outreach and Patient Empowerment Program (COPE) in the Navajo Nation collaborates with key partners to increase access to mental health resources for community members and front-line workers.
Cross-Site Mental Health Team
Cross-Site Mental Health Team. Click to expand.
The Cross-Site Mental Health team provides technical assistance, mentorship and supervision, establishes partnerships with academic institutions, and works hand in hand with local implementers, community partners, and Ministries of Health to provide comprehensive, community-based mental health care for common, comorbid, and complex mental health conditions in real-world settings.
For more information about our work, please visit the PIH Mental Health website :
