MHPSS.net (Mental Health & Psychosocial Support Network)

NEW ⚡ Movement is a powerful tool for mental health and wellbeing, yet its role in mental health and psychosocial support (#MHPSS) is often overlooked. 🎾🏀⚽ Despite strong and growing evidence that physical activity and sport can reduce distress, improve functioning, and foster connection, practitioners often lack accessible resources to translate this knowledge into practice. This new animation series, developed by the Olympic Refuge Foundation and Books Unbound, is designed to help close that gap. It offers a shared resource for both the sport/ sport-for-development and MHPSS communities, making evidence usable for practitioners working in diverse settings. 🔗 Watch the trailer https://lnkd.in/gDd4QUxC

MHPSS Milestones 📍Psychological First Aid (PFA) has been described as 'probably the most popular MHPSS activity in the world'. Since the publication of the 2011 'guide for field workers' by World Health Organization, World Vision and the War Trauma Foundation, PFA has become the standard training for any frontline workers who may encounter distressed persons in humanitarian contexts or in other crisis situations - helping to make the case that any one of us can make a contribution to MHPSS. 📘 View: https://shorturl.at/X8J26 In this webinar, recorded five years after the publication of the PFA guide, lead author Leslie Snider, MD, MPH reflects critically on the ways in which PFA was already reshaping what was possible in humanitarian settings. 🔗 Watch: https://shorturl.at/vVLIp #WMHD2025 #WorldMentalHealthDay

#WorldMentalHealthDay: effective mental health support starts with communities ⚡ A new multi-agency advocacy paper highlights a critical need: integrating #MHPSS in humanitarian response, especially in light of global funding cuts and the humanitarian reset. 📘 Key Ask 5: Ensure MHPSS programming is community-driven and contextually grounded 🔗 Read the full paper: https://shorturl.at/EdLsi #MHPSSMatters #WMHD

This #WorldMentalHealthDay, we're advocating for a fundamental shift in how we view mental health in emergencies ⚡ A new multi-agency advocacy paper highlights a critical need: integrating #MHPSS in humanitarian response, especially in light of global funding cuts and the humanitarian reset. 📘 Key Ask 4: MHPSS is included as a foundational component to recovery and long-term development after emergencies 🔗 Read the full paper: https://shorturl.at/EdLsi #MHPSSMatters #WMHD

#MHPSS Milestones 📍⚡ The publication of the IASC Guidelines on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Emergency Settings in 2007 was a pivotal moment in the development of the field. It provided a unifying framework for practical action for a field long-divided by differing approaches. The vision that it set out was of an inclusive and pluralistic field, made up of diverse approaches and worldviews but informed by shared values and common goals. The process by which these remarkably unifying guidelines were produced has been described by Mike Wessells and Mark van Ommeren, co-chairs of the Task Force that wrote the foundational document for the contemporary field. Read here 📘 https://shorturl.at/NObRH Reflecting on the lessons from this experience in 2023, Mike Wessells highlighted the critical role that process played in the development of the guidelines - and advocated for need to pay attention to process in contemporary efforts to strengthen MHPSS. Read here: 📙 https://shorturl.at/BcXC7 #MHPSSMilestones #WMHD2025

#MHPSS Milestones 📍 The early years of the field of MHPSS (before the term was invented) were extremely productive, but also characterised by deep divisions that emerged between intervention approaches. These 'tensions in the psychosocial discourse' were succinctly summarised by Alastair Ager in his 1997 paper 🔗 https://shorturl.at/v5GEP The divisions in the field were arguably overcome a decade later with the publication of the IASC Guidelines on MHPSS. Interestingly, some of the tensions have re-emerged in the discourse in recent years, as Ananda Galappatti notes on a panel held on World Mental Health Day last year 👉 https://shorturl.at/jGhdy #MHPSSMatters #WMHD2025

💥 We are delighted to announce that Marcio Gagliato, MHPSS.net’s Director of Operations, is taking on a new role as the new UNICEF Co-Chair of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee Reference Group on MHPSS. We wish Marcio every success in his new role, taking forward the collective vision of the membership of the Reference Group at this particularly critical juncture for the field. Read more:  https://lnkd.in/gYZ4sHyh #WMHD #WorldMentalHealthDay #MHPSSMatters

This #WorldMentalHealthDay, we're advocating for a fundamental shift in how we view mental health in emergencies. A new multi-agency advocacy paper highlights a critical need: integrating #MHPSS in humanitarian response, especially in light of global funding cuts and the humanitarian reset. 📘 Key Ask 3: Integrate MHPSS as an enabler of humanitarian aid 🔗 Read the full paper: https://shorturl.at/EdLsi #MHPSSMatters #WMHD

💥 We are delighted to announce that Marcio Gagliato, MHPSS.net’s Director of Operations, is taking on a new role as the new UNICEF Co-Chair of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee Reference Group on MHPSS. We wish Marcio every success in his new role, taking forward the collective vision of the membership of the Reference Group at this particularly critical juncture for the field. Read more:  https://lnkd.in/gYZ4sHyh #WMHD #WorldMentalHealthDay #MHPSSMatters