The MHPSS Collaborative

The MHPSS Collaborative was born out of a response to a growing body of research on the impacts of children’s exposure globally to unprecedented rates of violence, abuse, exploitation and neglect – particularly those in crisis, migration and displacement situations. Exposure to critical incidents and long-term adversity, and the failure of adequate child protection and nurturance, leads to devastating impacts on children’s physical and mental development, their potential to actively engage in the building of inclusive, peaceful societies, and the socio-economic development and stability of communities as a whole.

Vision: Children and families benefit from quality, MHPSS services during humanitarian crises. Mission: Organizations providing MHPSS services have an intentional focus on children and families and provide quality services to meet the needs of the vulnerable.

Problem Statement: Attention to C&F MHPSS across the humanitarian space is inconsistent, approaches don’t represent the lifespan of the child or adequately address the ecological framework and the lived reality of children and families.

Our initial strategy for the first 4 years include: - Convening local and global organizations to lift C&F MHPSS - Knowledge generation and management around evidence informed MHPSS interventions for C&F - Advocacy to ensure that C&F are represented their voices heard in on-going advocacy efforts - Emerging challenges: we are focusing on areas of increasing importance that are not necessarily widely addressed (migration, environment, MHPSS into education, etc)