Global Behavioral Health

The Mental Health Program in Liberia is engaged in a number ofseveral initiatives to strengthen the behavioral health system and promote quality, accessible mental health services for all Liberians.

• Training a mental health workforce and building capacity of key partners to embed training in schools of nursing, maintain rigorous credentialing processes, and ensure classification of mental health clinicians in the national civil service system.
  • The Carter Center and Deanna K. Isaacson School of Midwifery are currently training the seventh cohort of child and adolescent mental health clinicians (CAMHCs). The training brings the total number of CAMHCs to 140 and brings Liberia closer to achieving the current National Mental Health Strategy goal of 160 CAMHCs across the country by 2021.
• Integrating mental health into other health and development priorities, including maternal mental health, neglected tropical disease management, school-based mental health, and early childhood development, with adapted tools and trainings.
  • With support from Open Society Foundations, The Carter Center is driving the adaptation, training, and implementation of Thinking Healthy Liberia, a WHO-endorsed manual for perinatal mental health.
  • The Carter Center and the Liberian Ministry of Education are working to scale up early childhood interventions in schools, supported in planning by the Bernard Van Leer Foundation.
• Reducing stigma associated with mental illnesses by training journalists, religious/traditional healers, law enforcement, and service users and their families on anti-stigma knowledge, attitudes, and practices.
  • Working with the Mental Health Reporters Network, the first mental health reporting organization in Liberia, The Carter Center trains journalists on how to combat stigma and misinformation through accurate and sensitive reporting on mental health. This initiative leverages the insights and network of the Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism program and decades of the Center’s experience conducting anti-stigma dialogues with faith/traditional leaders, caregivers, and communities in Liberia.
  • Training law enforcement and mental health clinicians in crisis intervention team (CIT) programs. The Mental Health Program in Liberia has been working with the Liberia National Police to educate law enforcement and mental health clinicians on de-escalation and build alliances between the law enforcement and mental health communities in order to improve community response to mental health crises.
• Building capacity of civil society organizations such as the Liberian Center for Outcomes Research in Mental Health (LiCORMH) and strengthening advocacy efforts of user-led groups.
  • The Carter Center assists LiCORMH, established as an independent research organization in 2009 by The Carter Center, The John F. Kennedy Medical Center, and the Ministry of Health. The mission of LiCORMH is to advance quality mental health services and supports through research.
  • Anti-stigma efforts have led to the development of the nation’s first mental health consumer advocacy group, Cultivation for Users' Hope (CFUH), established and led by users of mental health services. The Carter Center supports CFUH to advance the social inclusion and integration of mental health service users through sustained advocacy and effective community engagement. CFUH is the Liberian leader for the global Speak Your Mind campaign.
• Assisting the government of Liberia to establish, implement, and enforce policies and plans for mental health financing and service provision. These have included the 2016-2021 National Mental Health Policy and Strategic Plan, the mental health component of the Essential Medicines List, and standards for Mental Health Nursing.
  • The Carter Center is currently conducting a mental health financing assessment, working with United for Global Mental Health and the government of Liberia.
• Ensuring supply of needed psychotropic medications in partnership with MAP International and providing adequate training in psychopharmacology and clinical management of substance use disorders to mental health clinicians and pharmacists.
  • The Carter Center and MAP International have a five-year agreement to support the delivery of psychotropic medications to Liberia until 2024. 

To ensure the sustainability of these services and supports, the Mental Health Program in Liberia works with Liberian institutions and stakeholders including people with lived mental health experience; the Ministry of Health; the Ministry of Education; the Ministry of Gender, Children, and Social Protection; The John F. Kennedy Medical Center; County Health Teams; The Liberian Board of Nursing and Midwifery; Phebe School of Nursing; Deanna K. Isaacson School of Midwifery; The University of Liberia; The Liberia National Police Academy; The Liberia National Physician’s Assistants Association; Liberia Nurses Associations; Liberia Parent-Teacher Association; and other valued partners in the field.

The Carter Center Mental Health Program in Liberia is drawing on wisdom gained during the Ebola outbreak of 2014-15. As a trusted member of Liberia’s Incident Management System (IMS) that manages the country’s response, the program provides technical assistance to the country’s COVID-19 response. The program collaborates with the government on strategies aimed at reducing acute stress or exacerbated mental health problems associated with containment measures, such as lockdowns and quarantines in affected counties. Further, it supports mental health professionals in their provision of a range of mental health and psychosocial services (MHPSS), provides administrative support to the MHPSS pillar, and ensures integration of MHPSS services across the response pillars. The Mental Health Program in Liberia has been working on the response pillar headed by the Ministry of Gender, Children, and Social Protection, the line ministry leading welfare and response efforts, and on the IMS to ensure that mental health and psychosocial support are included in all aspects of the response.

The Carter Center has engaged multiple sectors in the provision of mental and psychosocial support. Across the health, education and social service sectors, professionals have attained competencies in mental health clinical care, mental health identification and referral, neuroscience, anti-stigma activities, crisis intervention, and much more. 

Program alumni continue to make a lasting impact in their communities, establishing new services, fighting stigma and misinformation, sharing knowledge resources, and facilitating healing dialogues. Some alumni are educators who return to classrooms to ensure the next generation of primary care workers will be better prepared to deliver mental health care. Others lead policy and strategy development, head up health care institutions such as the Liberian Ministry of Health and SOS Health Center Villages, and are on the vanguard of emergency response. As with the Ebola outbreak, mental health clinicians and mhGAP-ig trained providers are on the frontlines of Liberia’s COVID-19 response.