These ICRC guidelines outline the organization’s approach to mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) during and after armed conflict and other situations of violence. They provide a framewo...rk for harmonizing MHPSS programmes within the organization, and an insight into its strategic processes and field practices.
This publication is not intended to serve as a training manual for specific MHPSS techniques. In sharing these guidelines with an external audience, the ICRC aims to raise awareness of its approach among professionals and other interested parties.
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The International Rescue Committee (IRC) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have newly developed "Caring for Child Survivors of Sexual Abuse Guidelines" for health and psychosocial pr...oviders in humanitarian settings - “CCS Guidelines”. The CCS Guidelines are based on global research and evidence-based field practice, and bring a much-needed fresh and practical approach to helping child survivors, and their families, recover and heal from the oftentimes devastating impacts of sexual abuse. The guidelines walk the reader through the core knowledge, attitude and skill competencies required for service providers to effectively care for children and families affected by sexual abuse. In addition, the guidelines outline how to provide case management and basic psychosocial care for child survivors, as well as best practices for coordinating care.
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One billion people around the world live with disabilities. This report makes the case that they are being “left behind” in the global community’s work on health. This lack of access not only ...violates the rights of people with disabilities under international law, but UHC and SDG 3 cannot be attained without better health services for the one billion people with disabilities.
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With sustained economic growth in many parts of the developing world, an increasing number of countries are transitioning away from the most subsidized development finance as they exceed income and other qualification requirements. Cross-country evi...dence suggests that Development Assistance Committee (DAC) donors view the crossing over of the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) eligibility threshold to signal that a country needs less aid, with subsequent reductions in both IDA and other donors’ concessional funding. Within the health sector, it is particularly important to understand the implications of these status changes for children under five years of age since improving early childhood health is critical to fostering health and social and economic development. Therefore, we examine the implications of the IDA transition by measuring the extent t which World Bank commitments—including both IDA and IBRD—are directed to infant and child health needs in Nigeria. Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) models were used in a difference-indifferences (DID) strategy to compare World Bank IBRD/IDA lending before and after the crossover to regions with varying initial levels of under-five and infant need.
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USAID Senegal and Health in Africa (HIA) initiative of the World Bank Group engaged the Strengthening Health Outcomes through the Private Sector (S...HOPS) project to conduct an assessment of the private health sector in Senegal. The assessment’s primary focus is family planning, and its secondary focus is maternal, neonatal and child health (MNCH), HIV and AIDS, malaria, and nutrition.
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A major problem facing the world is how to build peace following the ravages of increasingly protracted armed conflict. Armed conflicts leave behind shattered, divided societies that are at risk of repeating cycles of violence, and therefore need co...ncerted peacebuilding efforts. Conflicts also take a heavy toll on people’s mental health and psychosocial well-being. One in five people who live in a war zone will likely develop a mental disorder, and many others suffer from painful everyday stresses associated with multiple losses, family separation, gender-based violence (GBV), disability, climate change and ongoing insecurity, among other issues.
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In many of Myanmar’s contested regions, healthcare services are provided through two parallel governance systems – by the government’s Ministry of Health, and by providers linked to ethnic armed orga...nizations. Building upon efforts to build trust between these two actors following ceasefires signed in 2011 and 2012, the new National League for Democracy-led government offers an unprecedented opportunity to increase cooperation between these systems and to ensure health services reach Myanmar’s most vulnerable populations.
The report provides an overview of existing health service arrangements in these areas, from both the Ministry of Health and from ethnic and community-based health organizations. It then unpacks the concept of “convergence”, highlighting key opportunities and policy recommendations for both government and non-government actors.
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Political developments in Myanmar/Burma prompted the Asian-Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women (ARROW) in 2013 to undertake a small-scale scoping study to re-evaluate and refine its advocacy strategies for sexual and reproductive ...t medbox">health and rights (SRHR), and to strengthen partnerships for advocacy with civil society organisations (CSO) working on SRHR in the country. The study aimed to identify the status of and the potential for SRHR advocacy by CSOs in Central Myanmar/Burma and in Eastern states along the Thai-Myanmar/Burma border, and increase the current knowledge base on SRHR issues, gaps, and challenges.
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In March 2020 the IASC Reference Group on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support uniting 57 humanitarian organizations as member issued the Interim Briefing Note Addressing Mental ...bute-to-highlight medbox">Health and Psychosocial Aspects of COVID-19 Outbreak. This document has proven to be very useful in the response and has till now been translated in 24 languages. It covers a set of recommended activities as well as messages for different target groups.
The current document is an annex to the Interim Briefing Note and is meant to support the MHPSS operational response within the various sectors of humanitarian work. Approaches and interventions to MHPSS are not confined to one sector, but need to be integrated within many existing sectors and clusters.This document contains a wealth of operational information and practical approaches that can be used for humanitarian programming in health, SGBV, community-based protection, nutrition, camp management and camp coordination.
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The total installed capacity so far is 6.5 Mwh and over 20 million women and children now have access to quality health services. Solar for Health focuses on installing solar PV systems in ...ss="attribute-to-highlight medbox">health clinics located in the poorest and most remote regions of world, helping to ensure that no one is left behind.
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Gender-based violence, including rape is a problem throughout the world, occurring in every society, country and region. Refugees and internally displaced people are particularly at risk of this violation during every phase of an emergency situation.... The systematic use of sexual violence as a method of warfare is well documented and constitutes a grave breach of international humanitarian law.
The Arabic Version can be downloaded here: http://reliefweb.int/report/syrian-arab-republic/guidelines-health-staff-caring-gender-based-violence-survivors-including
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In health emergencies as in periods of stability, restoring access to primary health-care services is a priority in so far as many health problems ...can be dealt with by means of preventive care and
conventional therapy. Depending on the context, the ICRC must often take action in this area, taking into account the level of emergency, the involvement of other actors, the possible evolution of the situation and the organization's operational strategies.
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In many of Myanmar’s contested regions, healthcare services are provided through two parallel governance systems – by the government’s Ministry of Health, and by providers linked to ethnic armed orga...nizations. Building upon efforts to build trust between these two actors following ceasefires signed in 2011 and 2012, the new National League for Democracy-led government offers an unprecedented opportunity to increase cooperation between these systems and to ensure health services reach Myanmar’s most vulnerable populations.
The report provides an overview of existing health service arrangements in these areas, from both the Ministry of Health and from ethnic and community-based health organizations. It then unpacks the concept of “convergence”, highlighting key opportunities and policy recommendations for both government and non-government actors.
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BMC Health Services Research 14(1):42 · January 2014
The objective of this international comparative study is to describe and compare the mental health policies in seven countries of Eastern Eu...rope that share their common communist history: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia.
The burden of totalitarian history still influences many areas of social and economic life, which also has to be taken into account in mental health policy. We may observe that after twenty years of health reforms and reforms of health reforms, the transition of the mental health systems still continues. In spite of many reform efforts in the past, a balance of community and hospital mental health services has not been achieved in this part of the world yet.
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This bi-weekly brief details the latest developments in scientific knowledge and public health policy from around the world as well as updates to the COVID-19-related guidance from Africa CDC, WHO a...nd other public health agencies.
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This report provides an overview of air pollution levels and associated health impacts in cities around the world. Since urban areas are often hotspots for poor air quality, city-level data can help... to inform targeted efforts to curb urban air pollution and improve public health. This report draws on data from the Global Burden of Disease project and from peer-reviewed analyses led by Susan Anenberg of the George Washington University.
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The aim of the present paper is to review capacity building in public health nutrition (PHN), the need for which has been stressed for many years by a range of academics, national and international organis...ations. Although great strides have been made worldwide in the science of nutrition, there remain many problems of undernutrition and increasingly of obesity and related chronic diseases. The main emphasis in capacity building has been on the nutrition and health workforce, but the causes of these health problems are multifactorial and require collaboration across sectors in their solution. This means that PHN capacity building has to go beyond basic nutrition and beyond the immediate health workforce to policy makers in other sectors. The present paper provides examples of capacity building activities by various organisations, including universities, industry and international agencies. Examples of web-based courses are given including an introduction to the e-Nutrition Academy. The scope is international but with a special focus on Africa. In conclusion, there remains a great need for capacity building in PHN but the advent of the internet has revolutionised the possibilities.
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This National Health Policy has 5 objectives, namely
i. To strengthen the healthcare delivery system to be resilient
ii. To encourage the adoption of healthy lifestyles
iii. To improve the physic...al environment
iv. To improve the socio-economic status of the population
v. To ensure sustainable financing for health
These objectives shall collectively ensure that there will be improved alignment, complementarity and synergies within and across all public sector ministries as well as with other stakeholders, towards achieving the national health goal.
The policy shall therefore ensure that MDAs and other identifiable organizations work within the principles of the Health-in-All Policy and the One-Health Policy frameworks (WHO), to achieve the desired healthy life status of people living in Ghana.
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A broad range of UNHCR’s key priorities overlap with MHPSS issues – for example, child protection and sexual and gender-based violence [SGBV] prevention and response.
Despite all these existent synergies, UNHCR’s current policies and guidelines do not sufficiently link with MHPSS principles.... For example, the Community Services section, which is closely aligned to the principles of MHPSS and could be well-positioned to guide the implementation of related programs, has not adopted the MHPSS language or approach.
There are opportunities for UNHCR to engage more strongly and clearly in this field. However, this requires a vision for how the organisation as a whole, and particular sectors within the organisation, will engage within the field of MHPSS activities. For a start, UNHCR can work to improve its understanding and framing of mental health and psychosocial issues, and how these issues fit within its broader mandate.
While the majority of MHPSS activities are delivered by implementing partners, UNHCR staff require familiarity with core principles in the field, such as the Intervention Pyramid contained in the IASC Guidelines, in order to support and monitor quality MHPSS activities.
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Version 2, January 2016
The primary purpose of this document is to provide 3MDG stakeholders with some essential information on the MNCH core-indicators for 3MDG, which were derived from the 3MDG Logical Framework, Data Dictionary for Health S...ervice Indicators (2014 June, DoPH, MoH), A Guide for Monitoring and Evaluating Child Health Programmes (MEASURE Evaluation, September 2005) and Monitoring Emergency Obstetric Care (WHO/UNICEF/UNFPA/AMDD). Partners are strongly encouraged to integrate the MNCH indicators into their ongoing monitoring and evaluation (M&E) activities.
These indicators are designed to help Partners assess the current state of their activities, their progress towards achieving their targets, and contribution towards the national response. This guideline is designed to improve the quality and consistency of data collected at the township level, which will enhance the accuracy of conclusions drawn when the data are aggregated.
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