1st Edition
Mental Health and Psychosocial Support during the COVID-19 Response An Overview
This new volume presents a holistic scenario of the challenges of providing mental health and psychosocial support to areas around the world with the most vulnerable populations during the tragic COVID-19 pandemic. The book synthesizes over 350 interviews with mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) professionals on the ground in countries around the world, discussing the lack of services and providing strategies for implementing mental health and psychosocial support in such situations going forward. The book is a first look at MHPSS during the COVID-19 pandemic with the hope that it will inspire and generate action for future worldwide mental health and psychosocial support responses.
This essential book is a call to action for cultural, linguistic, and contextual actions that addresses inclusiveness of the most vulnerable and unheard communities and that re-establishes resilience through mental health and psychosocial community-led programs. The volume is an analysis by a seasoned humanitarian worker with over 30 years of direct experience with the most vulnerable communities, with contributions from several colleagues. They help frame COVID-19 as a systemic loss of protective factors, where communities collapsed psychologically, socially, and economically.
Part 1: Background of MHPSS
Introduction
1. Community-Based Mental Health and Psychosocial Support as a Tool to Address the Societal Needs Raised by COVID-19
Joseph O. Prewitt Diaz
2. Activating Community Resilience through Community Capitals After COVID-19
Joseph O. Prewitt Diaz
3. Community Engagement in Times of COVID-19
Anjana Dayal De Prewitt
PART 2: ASSESSMENT OF POPULATION NEEDS OF THE MOST VULNERABLE
4. Community Engagement During COVID-19 and Beyond
Joseph O. Prewitt Diaz
5. Community-Based Psychosocial Support: A Process for the Protection of Vulnerable Populations During COVID-19
Subhasis Bhadra
6. Serving the Most Vulnerable: Psychosocial Support in Indigenous Communities in Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Ecuador, Mexico, and Peru
Joseph O. Prewitt Diaz
7. Psychological Support Migration Appeal International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent
Linda San Marcos
8. Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Three African Countries: Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone
Joseph O. Prewitt Diaz
9. Addressing Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Needs in Cameroon, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda
Joseph O. Prewitt Diaz
PART 3: IMPLEMENTING MENTAL HEALTH AND PSYCHOSOCIAL SUPPORT
10. An Examination of Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Four Low-Income Countries in South Asia
Joseph O. Prewitt Diaz
11. Reaction of a Selected Group of Youth to the COVID-19 in Panama
Jorge Brito
12. Developing a Universal Model of an MHPSS Regional Response
Joseph O. Prewitt Diaz
13. Chronology of MHPSS Interventions in the Americas During the Immediate and Early Recovery
Greisy Massiel Trejo Rodríguez
14. Country-Level Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Programs: Moving Forward After COVID-19
Joseph O. Prewitt Diaz
15. Mental Health and Psychosocial Support During and After the Pandemic: A Practical Response
Joseph O. Prewitt Diaz
16. Monitoring and Evaluation of Mental Health and Psychosocial Support
Joseph O. Prewitt Diaz
Biography
Joseph O. Prewitt Diaz, PhD, is a practitioner-scholar who began his career as a public health worker in the depressed villages of his native Puerto Rico. He was formerly a professor at Pennsylvania State University, where he trained over 120 PhD-level educational leaders. He served as a mental health volunteer at some of the major disasters in the United States, among them the Oklahoma City Bombing and the 9/11 United Recovery in Shanksville, PA. In 1998, he was assigned to International Disaster Services where he implemented mental health and community psychosocial support programs in South America and Southeast Asia. He has worked in over 57 countries as the mental health technical expert for the IFRC/ COVID-19 work group. During his years of service, he received multiple national and international awards for his service, research, and scholarly contributions.
“This book travels the communities who, at the end, with the MHPSS model developed individual and collective resilience to overcome their needs and develop behavioral responses to successfully manage those experiences in times of COVID-19. The case studies in the book make it possible to discriminate between the real needs of individuals within each community, leading researchers and service providers to the development of those members of the communities within the context of another disaster. The MHPSS model scientifically collects those best practices to attend, alleviate, develop appropriate behavioral responses, and survive in these times of Covid-19, that have altered the mental health of the population throughout the world. Finally, we cannot lose perspective that this pandemic has changed the way people live, the way of working, studying, interacting, even the way of appreciating and loving.” — Aida I. Rodríguez Roig, EdD, Chancellor, University of Puerto Rico at Humacao
