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Dear all,
This is a reminder that on Thursday November 23rd, from 12:30-13.45, Shoba Raja will be presenting "Mental Health in Less Developed Countries: Creating an Evidence Base for Policy & Practice" in the Graham Wallas Room at the London School of Economics . I attach the abstract for the presentation.
A sandwich lunch will be provided.
Kind regards,
Kate and Sara
Mental Health in Less Developed Countries: Creating an Evidence Base for
Policy & Practice
Presentation by Shoba Raja
Director, Policy and Practice
BasicNeeds
ABSTRACT
In response to a growing global understanding of the situation of mentally ill people, BasicNeeds was established in 1999 to initiate mental health programmes in developing countries. Currently BasicNeeds works in seven countries reaching out to 36,091 persons with mental illness. Our approach to mental health stems from our developmental understanding and experience. The programmes have achieved a degree of representation, functioning both in urban and rural areas, in normal and emergency situations, and in different cultural and geographical contexts addressing the needs of mentally ill men, women and children.
BasicNeeds views research as an instrument, which can bridge the existing gap between mentally ill people and the people who make policy decisions; decisions that affect their lives profoundly. This presentation describes BasicNeeds' approach to research in mental health and development, elaborates on the methodology, on how the research links with policy and practice, some challenges faced and ethics issues involved, themes for further research needed.
Some of the emerging findings are also presented. The findings indicate that even reasonably efficient, accessible mental health services contribute significantly to symptom reduction and stability. However most countries face problems of irregular, erratic supply of psychotropic drugs, shortage of appropriately skilled personnel and neglect in resource/budget allocations. Communities in developing countries provide significant human resources such as volunteers, health workers, and traditional healers who can follow-up with people with mental illness in the community, and ensure treatment compliance. But they are absent from most policy/practice discourses on mental health. Poverty has a significant impact on a family's ability to manage mental illness and respond to available treatment, but interests of people with mental illness are ignored in poverty reduction measures of governments, indeed conspicuously absent even in the MDGs.
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