In October, UNICEF and WHO co-hosted the child, adolescent and young people technical session at the Global Mental Health Summit in Rome. We are grateful to the Government of Italy for hosting this year’s Global Mental Health Summit and their ongoing commitment to mental health. Building on previous Summits in the Netherlands, the UK and France, this year’s Summit was a chance to reaffirm Member States’ prioritization of mental health, with a particular focus on community-based mental healthcare.
The technical session provided an opportunity to hear the perspectives of a broad range of stakeholders working to advance action on promoting skills, rights and care for children’s mental health, and ensure child, adolescent and caregiver mental health were central to discussions.
To kick off the session we heard from UNICEF youth advocate Sharon Sitania from Indonesia and caregiver advocate, Philani Ngxoli from South Africa, who presented their valuable lived experiences and expertise to help frame the discussion and ensure young people and caregivers were front of mind throughout.
In the first panel presentations we heard from government representatives from Norway, Greece and Palestine and WHO representative from Mozambique on the current situation of child and adolescent mental health in their countries, policy and service delivery priorities, and current challenges.
The discussion then moved onto a roundtable discussion on the promising solutions and key accelerators to address care systems and human resource development challenges. The panel included: Victor Ugo, MHPSS Collaborative, Denmark; Phiona Koiyet, World Vision International, Kenya/global; July Caballero, Ministry of Health, Peru; Prathiba Chitsabesan, National Health Service England, UK; Zill e Huma, Global Institute of Human Development, Pakistan; and Christopher Castle, UNESCO, France. Panelists provided a rich and comprehensive descriptions of emerging solutions to enhance community-based mental health prevention, promotion and care, as well as practical considerations policymakers and practitioners must take into account when implementing these interventions.
As a result of these valuable contributions and subsequent discussion, we developed three areas of recommendations for member states:
- Promote strong leadership, both from young advocates as well as governments across sectors, and coordination of efforts to improve opportunities for young people and families to access mental health promotion and care.
- Create strategies for sustained investment in supporting the development of a competent workforce across sectors that focus on child and adolescent mental health, supporting the skills of young people, their caregivers’, and the community, to enable an improved protective environment, and efficient delivery of mental health and psychosocial interventions through collaborative networks.
- Fill the data gap and improve country capacity to monitor the quality and impact of mental health services that promote child rights and use a strengths-based approach to protect young people’s mental health and wellbeing.
Youth advocate Sharon Sitania delivered these recommendations in the closing plenary on day two on behalf of the working group, along with a powerful closing message: “We urge you to keep young people and their caregivers on your mind, and at the table, in your conversations and efforts around mental health systems and services in your countries.”
We are grateful to all session participants for the thoughtful contributions that led to these tangible recommendations that will influence our engagement with national governments and partners moving forward. The recommendations from this event will also inform the work of the UNICEF and WHO Joint Programme on Mental Health and Psychosocial Wellbeing and Development of Children and Adolescents, launched in 2020.
As a next step we will be working with the Global Mental Health Summit steering committee to document these recommendations and contribute to the report of the event.
Please enjoy watching this video of the highlights of the event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qEOfnqXqbc