Empowering members of the community to take lead in mental health interventions will lead to a more productive and happy population, a doctor says.
Social change and Mental Health Directorate’s Dr Uma Ambi said Pokpok Island, in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville (AROB), had trained village mental health champions.
Ambi said the champions can now look after the whole island to be mentally healthy.
A team from the directorate went to Bougainville last month to start the rollout of the mental health gap action programme that aimed to scale up services for mental, neurological and substance use disorders.
Ambi said the participants of the programme included health workers from the Catholic health services, United Church and Buka General Hospital.
We train them in mental health so they provide good mental health services programme and they all got the knowledge and skills to do it.
Our village mental health champions are trained by trainer of trainers from the region.
Dr Uma Ambi