ANNEX V

REPORT OF THE WORKING GROUP 1

 PSYCHOSOCIAL/MENTAL HEALTH COORDINATION

•          Permanent formal, national level psychosocial coordinating body should be established.  This body will be responsible for psychosocial preparedness and coordinating and mobilizing initial response to an emergency.  During the emergency it will also be responsible for policy development, minimum standards, programme framework development, mobilizing financial resources (through advocacy or authority to allocate government resources), monitoring and dissemination of information 

•          Coordination should be intersectoral including major stakeholders, governmental organizations (Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Social Affairs among others), religious/community-based organizations, local and International NGOs, professional associations, UN agencies, Red Cross/Crescent 

•          Coordination should be lead by governmental ministry with highest capacity (time, influence, technical knowledge) supported as appropriate by international or national organizations 

•          Lead agency for these coordination mechanisms to be determined on case to case basis according to capacity 

•          National psychosocial coordination body should be linked to national disaster management body  

•          Need to have multilevel coordination (national, provincial, district) 

•          In response to particular emergency there is need to establish ad hoc task force/coordination mechanism (representative of stakeholders) at provincial/local level.  This coordination body will provide input into the policies, register and regulate organizations according to existing policies/standards, determine assessment and needs/priorities and coordinate activities at the field level 

•          Two models of coordination: separate psychosocial coordination committee; psychosocial subcommittee of a broader committee 

•          Coordination mechanisms have to be adjusted to the level of disaster and actors that respond to the disaster 

•          There should be dialogue between national and provincial in setting policy and standards

•         Need to ensure that there is an enforcement mechanism for minimum standards/policies and it is more effective for that to occur at provincial level 

•         Coordination mechanisms should also play a role in advocacy with other coordination bodies e.g. shelter, livelihood etc. 

•         Civilian nature of the coordination mechanism should be promoted/maintained 

•         Coordination bodies should work with the media for two purposes: advocacy to ensure that media supports psychosocial healing and does not contribute to distress; use of the media for public information

 

Coordination Challenges 

•         MoH is often the lead agency for coordination but is commonly not a very powerful ministry and risks to overly focus on mental health/health 

•         Power struggles between governmental ministries regarding coordination and between governmental/NGO organizations and within NGOs 

•         Difficulties to ensure community participation in coordination, policy and programming 

•         How to reconcile differing priorities among stakeholders at different levels 

•         Differing definitions e.g. psychosocial vs mental health 

•         How to enforce/regulate minimum standards is a challenge esp. in emergency phase 

•         How to deal with organizations who don’t want to coordinate?  Through insisting on registration/regulation? 

•         One of the challenge is to choose the lead agency that is able to bring representative group of the stakeholders 

•         As need increases the coordination becomes more complicated in general