IASC Minimum Service Package Mental Health and Psychosocial Support

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The Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Minimum Service Package (MHPSS MSP) is an intersectoral package that outlines a set of activities that are considered to be of the highest priority in meeting the needs of emergency-affected populations, based on existing guidelines, available
evidence and expert consensus. Each activity comes with checklists of core and additional actions.

The MSP is for humanitarian actors who plan, support, coordinate, implement and evaluate humanitarian activities within and across sectors. These include government actors, MHPSS Technical Working Groups (TWGs), national and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), civil society and other advocacy groups, Red Cross and Red Crescent networks, UN agencies, coordinators of sectors/clusters/AoRs and donors.

The MSP has been developed by the IASC MHPSS RG and is based on desk reviews, consultations and reviews by key stakeholders in global, regional and frontline positions. The MSP is based on and consistent with existing IASC guidelines, and other global guidance across different
sectors/areas of work such as the Sphere Standards, the Child Protection Minimum Standards, the GBV Minimum Standards, the INEE minimum standards. For an overview of the development process see FAQs.

Use of the MSP is expected to lead to better-coordinated, more predictable, and more equitable responses that make effective use of limited resources and thus improve the scale and quality of programming. This will ultimately result in substantially better mental health and psychosocial well-being for larger numbers of people.

Materials to facilitate implementation

The MHPSS MSP is an IASC product. The following materials can facilitate implementation but are not an integral component of the IASC product:

  • The MHPSS MSP web platform includes additional appendixes, links and tools, from a wide range of humanitarian partners.
  • The MHPSS MSP youtube channel includes introduction videos and a tour of the MHPSS MSP web platform. If you wish to receive an orientation on the MSP (remote or in-person), based on the needs of your agency and based on your context, please reach out to mhpss.refgroup@gmail.com.

Translations

Please contact the IASC Reference Group for Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (IASC MHPSS RG) (mhpss.refgroup@gmail.com) for the coordination of translations. All completed translations will be posted below. If you create a translation or an adaptation of this Work, kindly note that: 

  • You are not allowed to add your logo (or that of a funding agency) to the product. In case of adaptation (i.e., changes in the text or images), the use of the IASC logo is not permitted. In any use of this Work, there should be no suggestion that IASC endorses an specific organization, products or services. 
  • You should license your translation or adaptation under the same or equivalent Creative Commons license. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 or 3.0 is suggested. This is the list of compatible licenses: https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/licensing-
    considerations/compatible-licenses
  • You should add the following disclaimer in the language of the translation: “This translation/adaptation was not created by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC). The IASC is not responsible for the content or accuracy of this translation. The original English edition: InterAgency, Standing Committee, The Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Minimum Service Package, Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO, shall be the binding and authentic edition.

© IASC, 2023. This publication was published under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO license (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/igo). Under the terms of this license, you may reproduce, translate and adapt this Work for non-commercial purposes, provided the Work is appropriately cited.

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