Carter Center Helps Liberia Provide Children and Adolescents with Mental Health Services

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: In Atlanta: Rennie Sloan, [email protected]
In Monrovia, Liberia: Janice Cooper, [email protected]

ATLANTA…Twenty-one clinicians specializing in child and adolescent mental health graduated today in Monrovia, Liberia, from a training developed by The Carter Center’s Mental Health Program in partnership with the Liberia Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection.  These graduates, the first cohort of clinicians focused on children and youth from the partnership, will provide mental health and psychosocial care in schools, clinics, and other child and youth-centered settings.

The graduates add to the 166 mental health professionals previously trained in the collaboration to significantly increase access to mental health services in Liberia. Those clinicians are now working in primary care clinics and hospitals across 15 counties to provide much needed care as the country seeks to strengthen its mental health services. The group of Liberian nurses, physician assistants, and registered midwives completed a free, six-month Child and Adolescent Post-Basic Mental Health Training Program at the Tubman National Institute for the Medical Arts at the JFK Hospital in Monrovia.

"Liberia is making a brighter future for all of its citizens by investing in the mental health of adults, children, and adolescents," said former U.S. First Lady and Carter Center Co-founder Rosalynn Carter.

Liberia is on course to reach its goal of expanding access to mental health care to 70 percent of the population within the next few years. Previously, this nation of 4.3 million had one psychiatrist to meet the needs of at least 300,000 Liberians suffering from mental illnesses.

Graduates of The Carter Center program passed a credentialing exam in July from the Liberian Board of Nursing and Midwifery and the Liberia Physician Assistants Association to practice as licensed mental health clinicians. This allows them to return to their counties of practice as child and adolescent mental health specialists and to practice in primary care settings that focus on children and adolescents or to begin working in school-based clinics. These graduates are also critical to Liberia's post-outbreak psycho-social response to Ebola.

"This class of graduates marks an important milestone in the shift to strengthen mental health services in Liberia. The Carter Center program graduates have provided life-changing mental health and psychosocial support services throughout Liberia, especially for those facing the aftermath of the Ebola epidemic," said Dr. Bernice Dahn, Minister of Health in Liberia.

Since 2010, mental health clinicians trained by the Carter Center program have made a lasting impact in their communities by establishing new services at the ground level. Clinicians have opened 14 clinical practices in prison systems, trained nurse midwives to screen for maternal depression, treated refugees from the Ivory Coast conflict, supported the nation's first mental health consumer organization, worked in Ebola Treatment Units (ETUs) and provided psychosocial supports to individuals and families affected by the Ebola virus. This new cohort of child and adolescent mental health clinicians will assist in these efforts by providing specialized care to Liberian youth.

"With every group of clinicians trained, there is a special excitement around how they will contribute to gaps in the still emerging mental health system. As a child mental health specialist it is a personal fulfillment to have child and adolescent health mental health providers in our workforce.  We are especially proud that our first group of child and adolescent mental health clinicians comes from all over the country, 12 out of the 15 counties," said Dr. Janice Cooper, a native Liberian and project lead for the Carter Center's mental health initiative in Liberia.

The Child and Adolescent Post-Basic Mental Health Training program is part of a three-year initiative to address the psychological effects of Liberia's Ebola crisis and to promote psychosocial health in the country. The project, Supporting Psychosocial Health and Resilience in Liberia, is funded by Japan through the Japanese Social Development Fund, a trust fund administered by the World Bank. The project is expected to reach approximately 18,000 beneficiaries in Montserrado (housing Monrovia) and Margibi counties.

In addition to promoting long-term health and resilience through the newly credentialed child and adolescent mental health clinicians, the project provides support to respond to the intermediate psychosocial impact of Ebola. The Carter Center, in collaboration with Liberian stakeholders, has trained Ebola first responders in self-care, facilitated Community Healing Dialogues for Ebola-affected families, and trained health workers to provide community-based mental health care and family psycho-education. These and other efforts through this project offer support and capacity-building for individuals and communities affected by Ebola.

The psychological impact of more than a decade of civil conflict, which ended in 2003, has contributed to a mental health crisis in Liberia that has been intensified by: misconceptions, stigma, and the resulting discrimination surrounding mental illnesses; lack of mental health care training for health professionals; and inadequate supplies of necessary medications. The Ebola crisis exacerbated these needs.

While every Liberian county now has at least three mental health clinicians, there remains a need to build up services in places with immense treatment gaps. The largest concentration of Carter Center-trained clinicians, 45, serves a population of more than 1 million in Montserrado County, where the capital, Monrovia, is located. Outside Montserrado, the average number of mental health clinicians per county is seven. Remote counties like Sinoe, Grand Gedeh, and Lofa each have 11 clinicians, River Gee has nine, and the southern county of Grand Kru has three.

The Carter Center's Mental Health Program in Liberia is supported by contributions from individuals, foundations, governments, and corporations. The Center's partners include the John P. Hussmann Foundation, which aims to provide life-changing assistance through medical research, education, and direct aid to vulnerable individuals with urgent needs or significant disabilities. The Hussman Foundation's four-year commitment to the Mental Health Program in Liberia has been critical to the program's success.

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"Waging Peace. Fighting Disease. Building Hope."
A not-for-profit, nongovernmental organization, The Carter Center has helped to improve life for people in over 80 countries by resolving conflicts; advancing democracy, human rights, and economic opportunity; preventing diseases; and improving mental health care. The Carter Center was founded in 1982 by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, in partnership with Emory University, to advance peace and health worldwide.