Mental health matters.

We know that mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) are a crucial part of any humanitarian response - whether it’s integrating a psychosocial focus into WASH projects, helping families support each other, or providing psychological first aid in the aftermath of a crisis. From community-based mental health to specialized psychological and psychiatric care, MHPSS programming is critical. It helps the people you serve access and make use of other humanitarian services, build and rebuild their community support structures, and recover from conflict, displacement, disaster, and violence.

MHPSS programming helps people thrive.

But getting it right isn’t always easy.

Effective MHPSS programming requires the right people doing the right thing at the right time.

We can help with all three. We offer capacity building to ensure your staff and volunteers have the right skills - whether they deliver MHPSS interventions or other types of services. We offer technical guidance to ensure your MHPSS programs have the impact you want and are delivered at the right time. Read more about our Capacity Building for non-MHPSS staff, Capacity Building for MHPSS Staff and Volunteers, and MHPSS Program Development and Implementation.

Capacity Building for non-MHPSS Staff

Mental health and psychosocial functioning impact how beneficiaries perceive, access, and make use of – or fail to make use of – humanitarian services across the clusters. Enriching your staff and volunteers' understanding of mental health and psychosocial issues makes it easier for them to work effectively with beneficiaries, design and deliver programs that promote psychosocial well-being, and make appropriate referrals to MHPSS services when needed. Not everyone can or needs to be a mental health expert, but having a basic understanding of mental health and psychosocial well-being means better outcomes for beneficiaries and less stress for staff.

To build this capacity, we provide training for non-MHPSS staff in:

  • Delivering psychological first aid to people in crisis
  • Integrating psychosocial well-being into their programming
  • Working effectively with survivors of violence
  • Recognizing and referring people with mental health problems

    • Contact us to arrange capacity building sessions for your team.

    Capacity Building for MHPSS Personnel

    We’re here to support your MHPSS team – from staff to community volunteers. We develop and deliver capacity building programs to address gaps in skills and competencies and offer clinical supervision and support to increase confidence and practical application of MHPSS skills that help them turn learning into action.

    With our customized capacity building programs, your MHPSS team will develop competence in delivering services that promote, protect, and repair the mental health and psychosocial well-being of the people you serve. By focusing on clinical supervision and support, we ensure that your staff have the confidence to apply their skills in the real-world and the know-how to adapt what they have learned to the challenges they’ll encounter with real people in real crises.

    Consistent with the IASC Guidelines on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Emergency Settings and with a special focus on community-based mental health programming, we offer customized training and clinical supervision to strengthen your MHPSS team's capacity to:

  • Map mental health and psychosocial support services in an affected population
  • Assess the mental health and psychosocial support needs of a community or affected population
  • Provide community-based mental health services
  • Deliver basic counselling, including assessment of well-being
  • Deliver trauma stabilization and trauma processing with specially designed courses for non-therapist, frontline staff

    • Contact us to arrange capacity building sessions for your MHPSS team.

    MHPSS Program Development and Implementation

    We have the right combination of clinical expertise and humanitarian experience to help you design and implement effective and impactful MHPSS programming. As psychologists, we are experts in mental health. As humanitarians, we understand the importance of developing programming that is community-based, culturally relevant, and scalable.

    Working within the framework of the IASC Guidelines on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Emergency Settings, we provide:

  • Mapping of mental health and psychosocial support services in affected populations
  • Assessment of the mental health and psychosocial support needs of a community or affected population
  • Gap analysis to identify programming priorities
  • Implementation of non-specialized psychosocial interventions, including psychological first aid, trauma stabilization, and WHO scalable interventions
  • Specialized psychological interventions, including cognitive behavioural therapy and individual and group EMDR

    • Contact us to discuss how we can help you build and implement your MHPSS programming.

    Looking for support for yourself? Learn more about our Personalized Resilience Plans and online therapy.

    Looking for support for your whole team? Check out our staff support packages.

    Want help managing stress?

    Sign up for our free tips series and we’ll send you a stress-busting guided visualization to get you started.