ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the foundational knowledge essential to training in humanitarian mental health response and mental health systems strengthening. This knowledge includes familiarity with international standards of psychosocial, psychological, and psychiatric care and support in the context of both humanitarian crises and also in developing standing sustainable services; elements of health systems and clinical services design; quality improvement methods and elements of training systems design; and key concepts in social medicine as they apply to ethical delivery of mental health care. Global mental health educators and practitioners can deploy their expertise in developing clinical trainings, sustaining supervision, and managing teams in order to develop effective systems to support communities affected by crises, as well as to build long-term clinical capacities and contribute to overall health systems strengthening. Training curricula should be informed by a proposed care system that can be strengthened and developed according to existing resources—with both theory of change and value chain approaches—and should elaborate how care delivery platforms link district hospital, primary care, and community-based components of service delivery following a humanitarian crisis. Integration of planning for both humanitarian crisis response and subsequent mental health system reform can produce optimal outcomes in settings with constrained resources for mental healthcare delivery.
