Dans cet épisode du podcast Heartbeat of Humanity, Ahlem Cheffi, spécialiste SMSPS du Centre du Mouvement de la Croix-Rouge et du Croissant-Rouge pour la Santé Mentale et le Soutien Psychosocial, échange avec le Dr Fabrice Ouédraogo et Yahaya Diallo (Croix-Rouge burkinabè), ainsi qu’avec Hema Lacina (Croix-Rouge danoise).

Cet épisode a été enregistré au Burkina Faso lors de la formation régionale sur les soins de santé mentale communautaires (SSMC), organisée conjointement par le Centre du Mouvement de la Croix-Rouge et du Croissant-Rouge pour et la Croix-Rouge burkinabè pour la SMSPS, et basée sur les lignes directrices Community mhGAP de l’OMS.

La discussion aborde les soins de santé mentale communautaires comme une approche de renforcement des systèmes, ancrée dans la force collective des communautés, et positionnant celles-ci comme des acteurs clés de la prévention, de la réponse précoce et de l’accès aux soins. La conversation met en lumière le rôle essentiel des communautés dans la réduction de la stigmatisation liée à la santé mentale, le soutien au bien-être et le développement de réponses SMSPS durables, culturellement adaptées à travers l’Afrique.

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Community Mental Health in Africa: Strengthening communities and systems

In this episode of Heartbeat of Humanity, Ahlem Cheffi, MHPSS Hub Specialist, speaks with Dr. Fabrice Ouédraogo and Yahaya Diallo (Burkina Faso Red Cross) and Hema Lacina (Danish Red Cross).

This episode was recorded from Burkina Faso during the regional training on Community Mental Health Care (CMHC), jointly organized by the MHPSS Hub and the Burkina Faso Red Cross and based on the WHO Community mhGAP guidelines.

The discussion frames community mental health care as a systems-strengthening approach, rooted in the collective strength of communities and positioning communities as key actors in prevention, early response, and access to care.

The conversation highlights the power of communities in reducing mental health stigma, supporting wellbeing, and advancing culturally grounded, sustainable MHPSS responses across Africa.

This episode focuses on the potential of sports in supporting inclusion and mental health. Khalida Popal is an award-winning Afghan football pioneer and activist and the founder of the Girl Power organisation.

Khalida joined us for a training in Copenhagen under the Sport Coach+ initiative, implemented in a partnership between the MHPSS Hub and the Olympic Refuge Foundation (ORF). The initiative aims to create trauma informed and healing centered sports environments for young athletes between the ages of 10 and 24 with a focus on those with a background of displacement and adversities.

Khalida and the Girl Power team have vast experience and expertise in using sports as a tool for empowerment, inclusion and mental well-being with a focus on women from marginalized groups. We invited Khalida to share some of the insights and learnings from her work.

• Read more about Girl Power: https://www.girlpowerorg.com/
• Read more about Sport Coach+ : https://www.sportcoachplus.org/

“Too far, too fast?”

In this sixth episode, Sarah Harrison, Director of the MHPSS Hub, and Dan Amias, Senior Innovation Learning Adviser at Elrha, speaks with Mercy Githara, MHPSS Manager at the Kenya Red Cross Society, and Anne de Graaf, Technical Officer at the World Health Organization (WHO) about two chatbots: STARS, a non-AI chatbot developed by WHO, and Chat Care, an AI chatbot being deployed in Kenya by the Red Cross.

Key resources for practitioners:
Kenya Red Cross Society: Chat Care, AI Powered Mental Health Chatbot

WHO: Doing What Matters in Times of Stress evidence based self-help guide

WHO: STARS chatbot for more information contact psych_interventions@who.int

Red Cross Digital MHPSS pledge: Leveraging and facilitating technology-empowered pathways

MHPSS Hub resources on Suicide prevention:
Find infographics, videos, podcasts, guides and tools on suicide prevention

Read more about the research:
STARS chatbot (non-AI): de Graaff A.M, et al. Evaluation of a Guided Chatbot Intervention for Young People in Jordan: Feasibility Randomized Controlled Trial JMIR Ment Health

Keyan, D., et al. The development of a World Health Organization transdiagnostic chatbot intervention for distressed adolescents and young adults.

Akhtar, A., et al. Scalable Technology for Adolescents and Youth to Reduce Stress in the Treatment of Common Mental Disorders in Jordan: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial.

Karim Chatbot: Madianou, M. Nonhuman humanitarianism: when “AI for good” can be harmful. Information, Communication & Society

Torous, J. et al. Assessing generative artificial intelligence for mental health, The Lancet.

Spencer SW, Masboungi C. Enabling access or automating empathy? Using chatbots to support GBV survivors in conflicts and humanitarian emergencies, International Review of the Red Cross.

Developing digital MHPSS resources:
Reach out to the MHPSS Hub: mhpsshub@rodekors.dk or Elrha: info@elrha.org for collaboration on developing digital MHPSS approaches.

Evidence from the Frontline: Mental Health in Crisis-Affected Contexts is a six-episode mini-series produced in collaboration between the MHPSS Hub and Elrha, designed for practitioners working in humanitarian and crisis contexts, the series highlights impactful interventions and practical insights from experts in the field.

Evidence from the Frontline: Mental Health in Crisis Affected Contexts, episode 5: EASE

“What matters to young people? Climate, jobs, and mental health.”

Early Adolescent Skills for Emotions (EASE) is an evidence-based group intervention that helps 10–15-year-olds in adversity-affected communities manage stress, anxiety, and depression through skills training. It includes seven sessions for adolescents and three for caregivers, using adapted Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) techniques delivered by trained non-specialist helpers.

In this fifth episode, Sarah Harrison, Director of the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement MHPSS Hub, speaks with Professor Mark Jordans (researcher at King’s College London and Director of Research and Development at War Child), and Dr Zeinab Hijazi (Global Lead on Mental Health at UNICEF), to hear more about EASE.

We learn that, while not a ‘magic wand’, EASE has shown significant results and could help fill a gap in mental health support for young people in crisis-affected and low-resource settings. Mark, Sarah, and Zeinab discuss the rigorous training, competencies, and supervision needed for non-specialist providers, and the journey to develop, test and adapt EASE for implementation worldwide, including scale-up in Ukraine. They discuss future research opportunities, such as youth-led research or strengthening and simplifying the intervention. We learn that EASE should be integrated into a broader system of care, informed by national policy frameworks and practice standards.

Key resources for practitioners

Early Adolescent Skills for Emotions (EASE) – manual and practice materials in multiple languages published by the World Health Organisation

UNICEF Adolescent Mental Health Hub- resources for frontline workers, adolescents, and caregivers

Reach Now- a tool developed by War Child, for use by community members without a professional mental health background, to improve identification of mental health problems in young people and promote care seeking.

Read more about the research:

Mark J.D. Jordans et al. Evaluation of the Early Adolescent Skills for Emotions (EASE) intervention in Lebanon: A randomized controlled trial. Comprehensive Psychiatry, Volume 127 (2023).

Bryant RA et al. (2022) Effectiveness of a brief group behavioural intervention on psychological distress in young adolescent Syrian refugees: A randomised controlled trial. PLoS Med 19(8): e1004046.

Brown, F. et al. The Cultural and Contextual Adaptation Process of an Intervention to Reduce Psychological Distress in Young Adolescents Living in Lebanon. Front. Psychiatry, 23 March 2020, Sec. Public Mental Health, Volume 11 - 2020

Hamdani, Syed Usman et al. (2024) Effectiveness of a group psychological intervention to reduce psychosocial distress in adolescents in Pakistan: a single-blind, cluster randomised controlled trial. The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, Volume 8, Issue 8, 559 – 570.

Evidence from the Frontline: Mental Health in Crisis-Affected Contexts is a six-episode mini-series produced in collaboration between the MHPSS Hub and Elrha, designed for practitioners working in humanitarian and crisis contexts, the series highlights impactful interventions and practical insights from experts in the field.

Tackling the complex issue of perinatal mental health.

Thinking Healthy (TH), a brief psychological intervention that can be delivered by trained and supervised community health care workers. It uses simple cognitive behavioral techniques to provide mothers with support and to improve mental health outcomes for the mother and new-born infant.

In this fourth episode, Sarah Harrison, Director of the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement MHPSS Hub, speaks with Dr Waood Afara, Senior Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Officer at the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Yemen‏, and Dr Elisabetta Dozio Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Specialist at Action Contre la Faim (Action Against Hunger- AAH) in France. Dr. Waood and Dr. Elisabetta are experts in both the research and practice of the Thinking Healthy intervention.

Together we examine why dealing with maternal depression is important in humanitarian settings and explain how the intervention works in programming, including how to integrate TH in the workload of already overburdened community health workers. The link between caring for mothers and improving outcomes for children is explored, as are the cultural adaptations required to implement TH and measure its effectiveness. Key insights include importance of empathy and understanding from community and family members to support mothers in recovering, and the critical role that community health workers can play in improved maternal mental health if trained, supervised, and empowered.

Key resources for practitioners

Thinking Healthy: A manual for psychological management of perinatal depression (WHO manual in multiple languages)

Thinking Healthy Training Guide for community health workers and volunteers (MHPSS Hub)

Baby Friendly Spaces: Holistic Approach in Emergencies (ACF Guide)

Read more about the research:

Dozio E, Wamba V, Pueugueu I. Adapting the Thinking Healthy Programme for Perinatal Depression: A Culturally Tailored Approach in Three Central African Countries. European Psychiatry. 2025;68(S1): S151-S151. doi:10.1192/j.eurpsy.2025.386

Tomlinson, M., Chaudhery, D., Ahmadzai, H. et al. Identifying and treating maternal mental health difficulties in Afghanistan: A feasibility study. Int J Ment Health Syst 14, 75 (2020).

Evidence from the Frontline: Mental Health in Crisis-Affected Contexts is a six-episode mini-series produced in collaboration between the MHPSS Hub and Elrha, designed for practitioners working in humanitarian and crisis contexts, the series highlights impactful interventions and practical insights from experts in the field.

On 3 September 2025 the docudrama the Voice of Hind Rajab had its world premiere during the 82nd Venice International Film Festival. The movie directed by Kaouther Ben Hania received 24 minutes of standing ovation and won the Grand Jury Prize.

For our colleague Nisreen Qawas, MHPSS director for the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, the voice of Hind Rajab was the person at the other end of the emergency call she received on 29th of January 2024 – the day five-year old Hind was killed alongside her family members and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society team that was sent to rescue her.

This was not the first or likely the last time Nisreen was losing colleagues in the line of duty, and not the first or likely the last time she had to deal with the loss and the feeling of responsibility. MHPSS Hub Director, Sarah Harrison interviewed Nisreen about moral injury in the line of duty.

Find more information about the work of Palestine Red Crescent Society:

Website: Palestine Red Crescent Society

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/palestine-red-crescent-society-prcs-2083371b5/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PalestineRCS

Find more information about Hind Rajab:

The Voice of Hind Rajab official trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_RC04CZpAY

Hind Under Siege official trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loucaVTr85k

The Killing of Hind Rajab Forensic Architecture: https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/the-killing-of-hind-rajab

The podcast Heartbeat of Humanity is mainly for staff and volunteers in the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement, especially staff and volunteers working in mental health and psychosocial support services.

Listen to the podcast here or subscribe on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast or wherever you find your podcasts.

Find more episodes of Heartbeat of Humanity.

When is a transdiagnostic approach the best route to quality mental health care in crisis affected context, and how does it work in practice?

In this third episode, Sarah Harrison, Director of the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement MHPSS Hub, talks to three experts with extensive experience with CETA, the Common Elements Treatment Approach System of Care: Dr Laura Murray (Founder, CETA Global; Senior Scientist, john Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health), Cherry Soemyint (CETA trainer, Myanmar) and David Mwanza (CETA trainer, Zambia).

Together they explore how CETA is adapted for different service-user groups and contexts; and CETA’s potential to be linked with different interventions for long-term impact, as well as approaches to supervision and cost-effectiveness considerations. They talk about how it can be flexibly implemented and adapted to diverse countries, communities and contexts in response to needs-with CETA clients ranging from people with HIV in Zambia, to pregnant and lactating mothers in the Thai Burmese border.

CETA is a transdiagnostic system of care; starting with a brief assessment that helps triage and create a clinical care pathway, along with ongoing monitoring and evaluation. It is evidence-based for all ages (children, youth and adults) and is built from evidence-based CBT-cognitive behavioural therapy elements. It is meant to streamline and simplify care – moving away from siloed assessments and treatments (or those that assess or treat only one problem area).

Key resources for practitioners:

www.cetaglobal.org

www.ceta-global.com

Read more about the research:

Evaluation of phone-delivered psychotherapy for refugee children

Integrating an evidence-based mental health intervention into non-communicable disease care (coming soon)

Evidence from the Frontline: Mental Health in Crisis-Affected Contexts is a six-episode mini-series produced in collaboration between the MHPSS Hub and Elrha, designed for practitioners working in humanitarian and crisis contexts, the series highlights impactful interventions and practical insights from experts in the field.

Do Child Friendly Spaces (CFS) really improve children’s mental health?

Child-Friendly Spaces (CFS) are safe, structured places established quickly in emergencies where children can play, learn, and receive psychosocial support, to promote protection and wellbeing.

In this second episode, Sarah Harrison, Acting Director of the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement MHPSS Hub, speaks with Professor Alastair Ager, Queen Margaret University and Columbia University and Phiona Koyiet, MHPSS Lead, World Vision International, for a practitioner-focused reflection.

Together they examine what the evidence says about effectiveness and impact of CFS for children’s wellbeing, protection and mental health, drawing on rigorous research (see below) and unpack what this means in practice: setting and monitoring quality indicators, ensuring skilled facilitators (“animators”), and the importance of integrating CFS within a tiered system of care with clear referral pathways - since CFS are not ‘silver bullets’. They discuss field adaptations, cultural relevance, costs and staffing, and how evidence has shaped World Vision’s programming guidance.

Key resources for practitioners

Tools and guidance for monitoring and evaluating Child Friendly Spaces

The Toolkit for Child Friendly Spaces in Humanitarian Settings

Read more about the research:

Evaluating the longer-term mental health, developmental and systems impact of Child Friendly Spaces in humanitarian emergencies

An RCT of enhanced Child Friendly Space interventions for children affected by conflict and displacement

Evidence from the Frontline: Mental Health in Crisis-Affected Contexts is a six-episode mini-series produced in collaboration between the MHPSS Hub and Elrha, designed for practitioners working in humanitarian and crisis contexts, the series highlights impactful interventions and practical insights from experts in the field.