MENTAL HEALTH AND PSYCHOSOCIAL SUPPORT

PsychosocIal well-beIng and mental health: how are they connected?

Psychosocial well-being refers to the ability of individuals, families or communities to have cognitive, emotional and spiritual strength combined with positive social relationships. This state of well-being encourages the development of life skills that enable individuals, families or communities to understand and participate in their environment and to make positive choices that give hope for the future. The term “psychosocial support” therefore refers to activities that address the psychological and social needs of individuals, families, groups and communities, usually in situations of adversity.

It is a process of building the resilience of individuals, families and communities while respecting their independence, dignity and coping mechanisms. Psychosocial support promotes, among other things, the restoration of social cohesion.

It can be both preventive and curative:

• It is preventive when it reduces the risk of developing mental disorders, for example
• It is curative when it helps individuals and communities overcome and deal with psychosocial problems that may have arisen as a result of shock or the effects of a crisis.

The composite term “mental health and psychosocial support” is used to describe any type of support aimed at protecting or promoting well-being and/or preventing or treating a mental disorder. This term was born out of the joint work of different organisations working in emergency humanitarian contexts. It aims to bring together a range of interventions with common objectives but different modes of intervention. Its use is now being extended to the development community and has been adopted by DDD.

MHPSS at Dünya Doktorları : our psychosocial support work

DDD has structured its mental health and psychosocial support strategy around a few key principles.

Going beyond humanitarian principles: approaches to psychosocial support

All organisations providing humanitarian assistance are committed to respecting the main principles of humanitarian intervention: the humanitarian imperative, neutrality, impartiality, accountability, the participation of affected populations, respect for culture, the principle of do no harm and so on.

Two of these principles are particularly highlighted in DDD mental health and psychosocial strategy:

• Do no harm: this requires the organisation to have the necessary resources to implement quality interventions and to focus on strengthening existing structures rather than establishing parallel structures;
• The participation and involvement of people at all stages of the projects is essential in our mental health and psychosocial support interventions. This takes place particularly through the development of community health approaches which aim to strengthen the capacity of individuals and communities to act and are more particularly divided into:
• Systematising the realisation of contextual MHPS diagnoses taking into account the analysis of socio-cultural elements before any definition and implementation of projects;
• Building intervention strategies that take into account long-term perspectives even in the context of emergency actions. This is all the more interesting as the organisation has the capacity to intervene in emergencies and to be part of development programmes;
• Providing the necessary means for the implementation of quality programmes, including essential and trained human resources;
• Providing the means to evaluate projects and their impacts.