The Parivartan Trust works with people with a range of mental health problems in diverse settings in India to;

  • Enable access to evidence based care and treatment in an accessible, acceptable and affordable manner 
  • Promote the social inclusion of people with mental disorders by enabling citizenship rights and meaningful employment opportunities

Parivartan was established by Dr. Shaila Dabholkar and Dr. Narendra Dabholkar, who through their work related to superstitions, realised that lack of awareness of scientific treatments for mental health problems and addictions is one of the most important reasons for exploitation, stigma and exclusion.

Our work involves:

  • Developing, piloting, implementing and assessing effectiveness and feasibility of integrated community based care models through task sharing for common mental disorders, severe mental disorders, epilepsy and addictions.
  • Work force development through training of lay people, volunteers, non-specialist primary care health workers and primary care doctors.
  • Support groups for patients and caregivers
  • Enabling access to employment and basic citizenship rights such as banking facilities and identity cards. 
  • Developing various collective work enterprises using local technical skills and expertise
  • Developing a cadre of peer support workers
  • Developing a wide variety of community engagement tools such as short films, documentaries, posters and slogans.
Summary of relevant work: 

In the last few years, the Parivaratan Trust has been involved in developing mental health programs like the INCENSE and JAN MAN SWASTHYA (People’s Mental health) that translate evidence-based treatments for people with a range of mental disorders into community based care. Through these programs across different parts of India, Parivartan has accumulated an in-depth understanding of both, individual factors as well as health system and social contexts that influence access to treatments for priority mental disorders.

The program is focused on addressing the unmet treatment, social, economic and citizenship needs of three groups of highly vulnerable persons with severe mental disorders (SMDs). These include people living in mental hospitals for long periods of time, people living with their families in the vicinity of the hospitals but without access to appropriate care and homeless persons with SMDs living on the streets. Mental hospitals by themselves in India often have limited capacity to provide extramural support for integrated care; hence a key strategy was the creation of a multi sectoral and collaborative platform of local and regional partners who would work closely with the hospitals by pooling their expertise and resources to try and meet the diverse and complex needs of these vulnerable persons. 

​The Jan Man Swasth Program or the JMSP delivers community based mental health services at seven different sites in India through a hub and spokes arrangement. Parivartan is the hub or Secretariat that coordinates the delivery of the structured, evidence-based, stepped care treatments for people with psychosis, depression, anxiety and convulsive epilepsy in these community settings. In the course of working with more than 3,500 persons, their families, local health systems and the community, the JMSP has garnered valuable insights from diverse settings about the barriers and solutions in providing mental health services in resource restricted settings.

Address: 

Parivartan Trust, Behind Civil Hospital,
Sadar Bazaar, Satara – 415001, India

Email: 
parivartan.incense@gmail.com
Telephone: 
+91 (2162)-227307 / +91 (020) 60124400
Key partners: 
Funders: 
Seeking collaboration with: 
Other organizations
Experts by experience/service users
Researchers
Policy makers
Country: 
India

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