Establishing good practice for human rights-based approaches to mental health care and psychosocial support in Kenya

A human rights-based approach (HRBA) to health has long been seen as an important way in which to address public health needs in a manner that is equitable and conducive to social justice. Yet the actual content of an HRBA to health remains unspecific, and therefore implementation remains heterogeneous. This situation is even more challenging in the field of mental health, where human rights considerations are particularly complex and have emerged out of a history of myriad violations. Even when research has been conducted into mental health, it has focused predominantly on the Global North, raising questions of contextual and cultural relevance. Accordingly, this study examined the issue from the perspectives of stakeholders in Kenya who consider their work or the services they use to be rights based. It explored the key principles and interventions deemed to constitute an HRBA to mental health care and psychosocial support, the perceived benefits of such approaches, and the main barriers and supports relevant for implementation. The results produced seven key principles and corresponding interventions. Among other things, it highlighted the importance of economic well-being and self-efficacy, as well as the reduction of barriers to implementation, such as stigma and lack of adequate resourcing. Two key tensions were apparent—namely, the un/acceptability of coercion and the role of traditional and faithbased modalities in an HRBA to mental health care and psychosocial support.https://www.hhrjournal.orgpm2021Centre for Human Right

Open Dialogue as a Human Rights Aligned Approach

Throughout the last 20 years, the human rights perspective has increasingly developed into a paradigm against which to appraise and evaluate mental health care. This article investigates to what extent the Finnish open dialogue (OD) approach both aligns with human rights and may be qualified to strengthen compliance with human rights perspectives in global mental health care. Being a conceptual paper, the structural and therapeutic principles of OD are theoretically discussed against the background of human rights, as framed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, and the two recent annual reports of the Human Rights Council. It is shown that OD aligns well with discourses on human rights, being a largely non-institutional and non-medicalizing approach that both depends on and fosters local and context-bound forms of knowledge and practice. Its fundamental network perspective facilitates a contextual and relational understanding of mental well-being, as postulated by contemporary human rights approaches. OD opens the space for anyone to speak (out), for mutual respect and equality, for autonomy, and to address power differentials, making it well suited to preventing coercion and other forms of human rights violation. It is concluded that OD can be understood as a human rights-aligned approach.peerReviewe

The Impact of COVID-19 on the Realization of Human Rights

Jessica Saunders, Director of Community Engagement at Dayton Children’s Hospital [Moderator] Presentations: Does Human Rights Derogation Limit COVID-19 Infections? (Brian K. Gran, Case Western Reserve University; Reema Sen, Case Western Reserve University) Lost in Transformation: The Human Rights We Lost during the New State-Centric Order (Caroline de Lima e Silva, Lichtenberg-Kolleg; Gottingen Institute for Advanced Study) Holistic Well-Being and Humanitarian Workers during COVID-19: Concepts, Challenges, and Recommendations (Nicholas Sherwood, George Mason University) Response of International Institutions to COVID-19 (Dainius Puras, Human Rights Monitoring Institute, Lithuania; Former Rapporteur on the Right to Health

Mental and neurological health research priorities setting in developing countries

Background Service learning in developing countries (SLID) can develop students’ skills such as teamwork, cultural responsiveness, ethical practice, and professional skills. However most research has been done in a single country, does not include multiple professions, involves small sample sizes, and only includes service learning at a single time point. Purpose This research explores physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech pathology student outcomes from interprofessional service learning in Vietnam and Timor Leste over three years. Method Post-placement questionnaires (n = 30) were analysed thematically. Findings ‘Personal successes’, ‘seeing the world in new ways’, and ‘developing as health professionals’ were identified as student outcomes. These outcomes arose from new experiences and relationships. Discussion and conclusions Interprofessional education can occur in SLID placements. Transformative learning might occur for students on SLID placements and SLID placement outcomes align with requirements for graduating health professionals, supporting the legitimacy of SLID as a formal aspect of professional education programs

Under threat: the International AIDS Society–Lancet Commission on Health and Human Rights

2023 marked the 75th anniversary of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Universal Declaration articulates an inspiring vision of a world that is just, equitable, tolerant, and strategically focused on actions to address the most vulnerable and marginalised populations—a counterpoint to the atrocities, repression, and colonialism that characterised much of the 20th century. Endorsement of the Universal Declaration was not commensurate with reality in many cases—especially because numerous signatories still had colonies and because Cold War politics resulted in divisions of social, economic, and political rights into separate international covenants—but it nevertheless inspired decades of progress. The Universal Declaration helped to support important, if partial, retreats of colonialism (with 17 formerly colonised African countries gaining independence in 1960 alone), to enable growing recognition of the rights of women, girls, and gender minorities, and to drive a decline in the annual number of war deaths in the second half of the 20th century