- 30 January 2020 - Sumeet Jain & Winston Kwon, UoE
Shifting the place, relations and process of care: three cases of social innovation in community mental health
In recent years, a number of Indian NGOs have developed highly innovative approaches to addressing gaps in the provision of community mental health care. An ethnographic study of three such organizations: Project Burans (Dehradun), Iswar Sankalpa (Kolkata) and Mental Health Action Trust (Calicut) reveals how innovation emerges from a contextually adapted network of practices within each organisation. While these networks of practises are unique for each organisation, they also have in common an approach to mental health care that is focused on recovery and well-being. From these findings, we developed a conceptual framework for a psychosocial approach to mental health through shifts in the: a) place of care (care is delivered in a multiplicity of spaces), b) relations of care (hierarchies and boundaries between groups are reduced), and c) process of care (practices of care are adapted and evolved).