Alan J Flisher Memorial Lecture: Implementing and scaling up…

This year’s Alan J Flisher Memorial Lecture was delivered by Prof Inge Petersen on implementing and scaling up integrated primary mental health care in the real world.

On 3 November 2020 the Alan J Flisher Centre for Public Mental Health hosted Prof Inge Petersen to deliver the annnual Alan J Flisher Memorial Lecture.

In this lecture, Professor Inge Petersen, public mental health psychologist and Principal Investigator of the Southern African Mental health INTegration (SMhINT) research consortium, shares the use of a three-pronged approach that adopts implementation science, technical support and systems strengthening to bring evidence-based task sharing interventions for common mental disorders into routine primary health care services in the province of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa.

Professor Petersen is the Director of the Centre for Rural Health, College of Health Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal.  She is a Research Professor in the College of Health Sciences, UKZN.

Prof Petersen leads and has participated in a number of local and international research consortia focused on closing the treatment gap for mental disorders in South Africa and other low-and middle-income countries through integrating mental health into primary health care.

Please view the webinar below.

WMHD 2020: What Mental Healthcare in South Africa Should…

To commemorate this year’s World Mental Health Day, the CPMH and the South African Depression and Anxiety Group (SADAG) co-hosted a webinar on what mental healthcare in South Africa should look like.

On 9 November 2020 the Alan J Flisher Centre for Public Mental Health and the South African Depression and Anxiety Group (SADAG) co-hosted a webinar to commemorate World Mental Health Day.

This year the World Federation for Mental Health has determined the global theme to be Mental Health for All: Greater Investment – Greater Access.

The invited speakers were Prof Crick Lund, a professor in Global Mental Health at the CPMH at the University of Cape Town as well as at King’s College London. He spoke on the strong investment case for mental health in South Africa.

Cassie Chambers, Operations Director at SADAG, then spoke on their experience over these last past months of moving their system completely online. She also shared some challenges and successes during their journey.

The highlight of the webinar was when two service users, Dr Sindi van Zyl and Thabo Xaba, shared their experiences of living with mental illness in South Africa.

The webinar ended with a short question and answer session.

Please view the webinar below.