National Mental Health Resource Centre

Based on extensive hands-on experience, our analysis of the mental health service delivery and psychosocial service delivery situation in the country identified the need for a national level resource centre, as an extension to the present CMC -Nepal. This will support improved services and training in mental health and psychosocial counselling and help meet the increasing demand.

Core Activities of the Resource Centre

• Training Courses

Resource Centre (RC) designs and runs standard and individually tailored training courses in mental health and psychosocial counselling for health professionals and NGO workers. The curricula include theoretical and practical sessions conducted under the supervision of clinical psychologists, psychiatrists and counsellors.

Having already implemented training on mental health and psychosocial counselling in over 25 districts in partnership with the MoHP, Department of Health Services; National Health Training Centre and Management Division, it plans to increase the district coverage thereby developing training package for medical professionals.

The following courses are currently available:

 

• Seven-day Training-of-trainers in mental health and psychosocial counselling
• Nine-day Mental health block training followed by refresher training for health service providers
• Five-day Basic psychosocial counselling training for health workers and NGO workers with follow-up supervision
• Three-day Basic trauma counselling training with follow-up supervision
• Two-week Modular training on child psychology and child mental health for school teachers
• Two-week Advanced psychosocial counselling train ing followed by clinical supervision

• Additional courses to be developed are:

  • Advanced psychosocial counselling training (1 month, 3 months and 6 months)
  • In-depth training in mental health and psychosocial counselling for tutors and others (3 months)

   

  • Training and Learning Materials

  RC has developed materials such as booklets, pamphlets, flip charts, training manuals, audio-visuals for teachers and learners in mental health and psychosocial counselling.

  • Resource Library

  A national resource library with associated digital library is planned for mental health practitioners, students, researchers and other interested persons.

  • Service Delivery

  RC runs outpatient clinics six days-a-week and in the future residential care services will be made available for patients with more severe mental illness. CMC-Nepal provides psychiatric, psychosocial counselling and trauma counselling services at its resource centre. This services is available for individuals, couples, children, adolescent and families. The counsellor appliles intervention techniques coming from several approaches(e.g. congnitive behavioural therapy and systemic family therapy). The services are well equipped, with experienced and compassionate clinicians and caregivers, including psychiatrists, psychologists and counsellors.

  • Research Studies

  RC promotes research in mental health in collaboration with national and international organisations and publishes scientific articles in national and international journals.