The activities below can help you address the needs of people with mental health problems and their family members.
Use your mouse or keyboard to expand each of the activity headings below. To add an activity to your action plan, select the Add button beside it. Once you have added an activity to your action plan, select Action plan > My action plan from the menu above to complete that activity.
Promote mental health
WHO/Khasnabis
In promoting mental health, the cultural, socioeconomic and political determinants of mental health, such as poverty, violence, neglect and sexual abuse, are addressed in partnership with relevant sectors. CBR programmes can promote mental health in their communities in the following ways:
Create inclusive environments that respect and protect the basic rights of everyone, including people with mental health problems
Strengthen community networks and encourage collective responsibility for preventing alcohol/drug abuse, gender discrimination and community and family violence
Develop partnerships with other stakeholders that are involved in promoting mental health and well-being
Promote positive interactions between parents and their children to enhance childhood development
Promote evidence-based programmes in schools that enhance the social and emotional competencies of students to help prevent substance abuse and violence
Work with the media to change the negative image of people with mental health problems
Facilitate inclusion in CBR programmes
The following activities are suggested to facilitate the inclusion of people with mental health problems in CBR programmes, following the statement, “nothing about us without us”.
Ensure that CBR personnel receive accurate training regarding mental health problems and have a positive attitude towards supporting and including people with mental health problems
Consult and involve people with mental health problems and their family members in the planning, implementation and monitoring of CBR programmes
In collaboration with people with mental health problems and their families, identify barriers and possible solutions in meeting basic needs, including access to health services, education, livelihood and social security
Identify mental health personnel, users of mental health services and/or family members who could assist in the training of CBR personnel
Overcome stigma and discrimination in the community
WHO/Khasnabis
Public knowledge about mental health problems and the possibility of recovery is very limited. To enable people with mental health problems to participate actively in society, common myths, prejudices and discrimination need to be addressed. CBR programmes can play a key role in doing this. Suggested activities include the following.
Ensure CBR personnel treat people with dignity and respect at all times
Identify key people in the community who can assist CBR programmes to deliver positive messages and images about mental health
Make contact with the identified key people and provide them with information about mental health issues in their community
Discuss ways in which the key people can deliver key messages about mental health problems
Identify community members and groups that would most likely have contact with people with mental health problems and are likely to have developed negative assumptions and attitudes
Make arrangements to provide education and training for community members and groups. Provide accurate information about mental health problems to dispel myths and make people aware that there are effective interventions
Promote human rights and challenge, when it happens, discriminatory behaviour that occurs in the community towards people with mental health problems and their family members. Be a good role model and demonstrate positive behaviours
Support the recovery process
Recovery focuses on the strengths of people and their capacity to lead fruitful and satisfying lives. The recovery process is a holistic process and may involve a combination of medical, psychological, social and economic interventions.
The recovery process can be addressed by facilitating access to the following:
Medical care
Psychological support
Social support
Livelihood opportunities
Support family members
In low-income countries, the family can be the most important mental health resource. The following activities are suggested.
Provide information for family members about mental health problems and coping strategies. Remember to obtain permission from the person with the mental health problem before sharing the information
Help families caring for people with many needs to avoid burn-out by encouraging them to share their care burden with other family and community members
Encourage family members to join self-help groups to share their experiences with others
Contribute to the empowerment process
Recovery from mental health problems is very closely linked to empowerment. As a detailed overview of the empowerment process and a comprehensive list of activities are provided in the Empowerment module, only a small selection of activities are listed here.
Ensure that CBR personnel are respectful in the way they approach and communicate with people with mental health problems and their family members
Recognize that people with mental health problems and their family members have personal knowledge and skills. Ensure there is a focus on people’s strengths, and encourage them to play an active role in the recovery process
Provide information to people (and, if appropriate, to their family members) about their mental health problems without imposing unnecessary labels. Ensure that they are aware of their human rights and how to exercise these rights
Make people aware of the available treatment and support options in their community to enable them to make informed decisions about actions they want to take
Link people with mental health problems and their family members with self-help groups
Encourage and support self-help groups to advocate for the development of accessible, affordable and acceptable community mental health services
Raise awareness about the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in partnership with others and address local and national laws to enable people with mental health problems to exercise their rights
Welcome to INCLUDE! This short tour will introduce you to the many resources available to you in our
learning community.
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This is the Module library page. It is the first thing you will see after you register and log into INCLUDE.
From here, you can choose to view nine different learning modules, each of which examines a different aspect of Community-Based Rehabilitation.
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Each time you make a selection from the Module library, you will enter a learning module (in this case the Health module) that you can interact with in a number of ways.
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You will have a number of opportunities to reflect on your thoughts, feelings and experiences related to CBR, as well as on what you have learned so far. If you want, you can choose to share your reflections with other members of the INCLUDE community.
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Note that when you are inside a learning module, you use the Continue and Back buttons at the bottom of the screen to move ahead to the next page, or go back to the previous page.
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You can also choose to jump directly to a different part of the current module by making a selection from the menu on the left side of the screen.
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In each learning module, you will also have the opportunity to respond to poll questions and learn what others in the INCLUDE community are thinking about CBR.
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You can also review numerous real-life examples of how others are successfully implementing CBR around the world.
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And you can create an action plan to help you:
•Better understand the needs of your programme, and
•Take specific, concrete steps to address them
As with reflections, if you want, you can also choose to share your action plan with other members of the community.
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Additional resources are available any time you want to access them, frrom the menu at the top of every screen.
From the Reflect option on this menu, you can:
•Review all of the reflections you have entered so far, or
•View the reflections other members of the INCLUDE community have entered and chosen to share
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Under Action Plan, you can:
•Work on your own action plan, or
•View action plans that other members of the community have created and chosen to share
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You can also view the full library of real-life examples of CBR in action from this menu.
If you want to locate the examples that are most relevant to your work, you can filter these examples by subject and region, as well as by the gender and age(s) of the population being served.
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In the Community section you can:
•Participate in conversations (discussions) with other members of the INCLUDE community
•View the results of every poll question included in the course
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Finally, you can view a set of additional resources related to CBR in the Resource library.
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Finally, you can view a set of additional resources related to CBR in the Resource library.
