Recommended actions

All actions should be concerted with persons with disabilities (including persons with psychosocial and intellectual disabilities),their families, and OPDs, in close collaboration with MHPSS experts and providers in MHPSS technical working groups.

Preparedness Response Recovery
1. Assessment, analysis, and planning
Conduct a needs assessment, using adapted tools for rapid participatory approaches. Include persons with psychosocial and intellectual disabilities. Integrate MHPSS components in other assessments. X X
Map and assess available MHPSS resources and staff. Include services and staff competencies (of specialists and non-specialists) across sectors. Consider experts and providers from MHPSS technical working groups, OPDs, and persons with psychosocial and intellectual disabilities. X X X
Using the WHO Quality Rights toolkit, map and assess all health facilities and residential care institutions in the affected area, as well as traditional or informal service providers for people with disabilities. X X X
Based on assessment findings, plan a MHPSS response and MHPSS programmes. Ensure these address the requirements of persons with disabilities. X X X
Develop or update national mental health policies, strategies, plans and legislation. Ensure the national MHPSS system is community-based and aligned with human rights. X X
Develop institutional emergency preparedness and response plans, including evacuation plans. Evacuation plans should safeguard family and community links. X
2. Resource mobilization
Mobilize dedicated budgets for community-based and human rights-oriented MHPSS responses and services that are inclusive of persons with disabilities. X X
Allocate budgets and resources to deploy peer supporters (including from other regions) to assist people with psychosocial disabilities in affected areas. X X X
Ensure that cross-sectoral appeals, proposals and concept notes integrate MHPSS considerations. X X
Establish, empower or mobilize peer-support groups, advocacy groups led by persons with disabilities, and social support. X X X
Mobilize resources to support outreach activities for individuals with disabilities who are institutionalized, live in confinement or receive traditional religious healing at home. These budgets should cover the costs of: essential services; monitoring; interventions to prevent human rights violations; and integration in the community. X X
Mobilize influential community members to challenge norms and attitudes that perpetuate or legitimize violations of the rights of persons with disabilities. X X X
3. Implementation
Raise awareness in the community of disability and the rights of persons with disabilities, including persons with psychosocial and intellectual disabilities. X X X
Build the capacity of specialists and non-specialists, including OPD representatives, volunteers and peer supporters. Training should include the human rights framework; multidisciplinary approaches in MHPSS; community-based care; task sharing; and psychological first aid. X X X
Build the capacities of humanitarian staff. Train them in how to interact in emergency settings with people who have psychosocial disabilities. X X X
Integrate evidence-based MHPSS interventions in the primary health care system. X X X
Make community-based and human rights-oriented MHPSS services available and accessible to persons with disabilities at all levels of care. Make use of task sharing. X X X
Make evidence-based psychological interventions available and accessible to persons with disabilities at all levels of care.150 X X X
Implement the WHO Quality Rights tools to protect the lives and dignity of persons who are institutionalized; to strengthen human rights surveillance; to put institutional evacuation plans in place; and to safeguard family and community links in the course of evacuations. X X X
Develop protocols to prevent coercive treatment, including forced institutionalization, forced medication, forced electroconvulsive treatment, and physical and chemical restraints. X X X
Take steps to ensure that destroyed or inactive care centres that formerly institutionalized persons with disabilities are not reopened or restored in the recovery phase. Advocate for a comprehensive community-based and human rights-oriented MHPSS system. X
4. Coordination
Coordinate with active MHPSS Technical Working Groups in the field to ensure that persons with disabilities are included in the MHPSS response. X X
Foster intersectoral collaboration to ensure that MHPSS programmes involve (at minimum) OPDs and actors from health, community-based protection, child protection and education. X X
Establish a sound community-based MHPSS system, based on a human rights approach, that delivers excellent services, supported by a strong and effective cross-sectoral referral system that includes community resources, traditional healers and religious centres. X X
Where persons with disabilities have been institutionalized, identify an agency to take responsibility for promoting de-institutionalization. Seek to transfer people from institutions to community-based accommodation that provides appropriate support, while ensuring their continued care and protection. X X
5. Monitoring and evaluation
Establish a monitoring mechanism for MHPSS programmes and services, based on the IASC MHPSS common framework for Monitoring and Evaluation. X X X
Include persons with disabilities, including persons with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities, in monitoring MHPSS programmes and services. Involve also their families, support persons and caregivers, and OPDs. X X X
Systematically monitor the human rights of persons with disabilities, using the WHO Quality Rights tools. X X X
Design or adapt information management systems and facility registers. Ensure that information collected is disaggregated by sex, age and disability. X