Mental Health System of Care at Zanmi Lasante
Zanmi Lasante (ZL), a sister organization to Partners In Health has worked in Haiti for over 25 years and is the largest nongovernment health care provider in the country, serving an area of 1.3 million people with a staff of more than 5,200. Zanmi Lasante operates clinics and hospitals at 11 sites in the Central Plateau and Lower Artibonite valley, and began providing initial mental health services in 2005 to patients with HIV and tuberculosis. When Haiti was struck by a devastating earthquake in 2010, ZL became involved in building a system for mental health care. In 2012, ZL/PIH received funding from Grand Challenges Canada (GCC) to develop a mental health system of care that would be integrated into existing services across all 11 facilities. Between 2013 and 2015, ZL iteratively created and piloted training curricula, job aids, and clinical tools across different disorder care pathways tailored to various providers (physicians, nurses, psychologists/social workers, and community health workers). These materials build on the World Health Organization’s mhGAP Intervention Guide and provide a replicable set of implementation steps that can be adapted to settings lacking formal mental health services. In the ZL mental health system of care, care is given through a task-sharing model in which providers collaborate across the continuum of care. In conjunction with this work, the ZL Mental Health Team has developed a system of sustained clinical supervision for providers and an MEQ system for mental health data collection and quality improvement. ZL has made enormous gains in developing local capacity to deliver safe, effective, and culturally sound mental health services. Providers across the ZL catchment area are now able to screen and provide treatments for depression, epilepsy, psychotic disorders and child and adolescent mental health problems. Currently in 2017, work to strengthen this system and expand services is ongoing.
Tools for use in an integrated system document
This document (also downloadable at the top right of this page) outlines the tools that were created during the development of Zanmi Lasante’s community based mental health care system. These evidence-based tools have been created for the Haitian context, and are currently available in both English and French/Haitian Creole at this time. They are also in the process of being adapted for other Partners In Health sites. This document provides an overview of the system and materials, and includes clickable links to each tool and form in the index.
Important Notice Around Copying and Distribution of Partners In Health Grand Challenges Canada Mental Health Curricula for Haiti/Zanmi Lasanate.
If you are interested in using or adapting these materials for use at a different organization, please contact PIH so that we can support adaptation and ensure consistency. The images found in the manual/handbooks have either come from PIH or have been purchased through Hesperian, and have certain licensing restrictions. If any manual plans to be reprinted at any site (that includes pages with images), please notify PIH, to ensure that we are not infringing upon our licensing agreement. Furthermore, our materials have been named in a certain way to ensure clarity and consistency in version control. If you will be editing these documents in any way, please be sure to rename it with the following naming convention: Country_Subject_Cadre_Material_Language_Date. For Example, if you are adapting the French CHW Psychosis Facilitator Manual for use in Rwanda in December 2017, your saved file should be named: Rwanda_Psychosis_CHW_FM_French_12.15.17. Please contact Sarah Coleman at PIH, scoleman@pih.org, for any questions or requests regarding the materials.