Leadership Training on Mental Health at Goa

Goa: Mental disorders constitute a huge global burden of disease, that is accompanied by a large treatment gap, particularly in low-and-middle-income countries. In light of key barriers such as mobilisation of financial resources, recruitment, and retention, and equitable distribution of the workforce challenges, Community-based programmes and task-sharing approaches have been found to be effective and feasible options in a range of settings.

From 3rd-14th December 2018, the two-week Leadership in Mental Health (LMH) course was designed in 2008 at Sangath, an NGO based in Goa, to develop leadership capacity in the context of the emerging global mental health movement, by promoting skills to develop and scale-up mental health interventions, and strategies to overcome barriers in resource-constrained settings, with emphasis on low-and-middle-income countries.

This course aims to equip participants with methods to develop and scale-up interventions for mental health in resource constrained settings. It also aims to augment leadership skills needed to scale-up mental health care programmes and promote the human rights of people with mental illness.

With 43 participants from various parts of world, DOHealth Mental Health Coordinator Ms. Ngawang Tenzin and Ms.Tsewang Yangtso took part in the course tutored by acclaimed professionals like Prof. Vikram Patel (Harvard Medical School and Sangath), Dr. Soumitra Pathare (Indian Law Society), Dr. Rahul Shidhaye (Sangath),  Prof Richard Velleman (University of Bath and Sangath), Dr. Gauri Divan, Dr. Abhijit Nadkarni.

At the end of course, the participants worked in group on four different mental health care plan. Incorporating the above learning into the plan. A mental health care plan for Tibetan exile population in India one of the mental care plan developed by the group which also the best care plan among the four plan. The DOHe has plans to implement a similar approach in collaboration with Sangath.