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Dear Colleagues
We are delighted to invite you to join a new and exciting initiative.
Following a conference held on World Mental Health Day in October 2024 on “Transforming Power Dynamics in MHPSS Localisation,” (see video, report & summary), an interdisciplinary cross-regional collective of practitioners, academics and allies from across the humanitarian and development landscape has been meeting regularly, united by a shared concern about the future of mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) in contexts of crisis, adversity and inequity.
To continue and broaden a shared reflection on these issues and to actively contribute to rethinking MHPSS praxis, this collective is launching a series of conversations to create space for reflection, critique, and forward-thinking about the field. These ‘critical dialogues’ will explore how power, politics and practice intersect in MHPSS, and how we can foster approaches that are community-rooted, justice-informed, and fundamentally transformative both of the lives of affected people and our efforts to support them.
At the heart of this series is a commitment to convening genuine conversations about how we begin to address urgent questions about the contemporary landscape of MHPSS across humanitarian and development contexts. In doing so, it recognizes the importance of interrogating how power operates and is reproduced within MHPSS systems, relationships, and interventions. This initiative is also taking place within the context of the recent financial and structural crisis in the humanitarian sector, reinforcing the urgency to explore more just, sustainable, and accountable pathways forward.
The first dialogue in the series seeks to explore the broad scope of what critical issues confront MHPSS today and situate these within the broader evolution of the field, through a conversation with a panel of practitioners with very different trajectories. The dialogue will look at discussing some of the following questions: How have histories of power, politics, and intervention influenced practice today? What dynamics are shaping the current MHPSS landscape? What possibilities exist for reimagining MHPSS in ways that are more equitable, inclusive, and community-led?
The session will also seek to ‘open the conversation’ with participants through discussions in breakout rooms to respond to the panel’s discussion and will invite them to shape the focus of the future ‘critical dialogue’ sessions in this series.
We hope you will join us!
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Moses Mukasa Bwesige is an experienced MHPSS practitioner and researcher with a focus on community-based approaches to mental health and psychosocial wellbeing in humanitarian settings, particularly with populations affected by conflict and forced displacement. He is currently the Inter-Regional MHPSS Officer for East and Southern Africa Regions at Jesuit Refugee service. For 10 years he has worked with both academic, national, and international organizations within the sub-Saharan region in countries such as Uganda, South Sudan, DRC, Zimbabwe, Kenya and at UNHCR HQ Geneva Switzerland. His experience in the MHPSS field includes community-based psychosocial support programming, implementation, assessments, and evaluations, suicide prevention and response and he has a special interest in the MHPSS-Gender nexus using an intersectional lens. |
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Rina Ghafoerkhan is a senior MHPSS technical adviser and researcher. She is specialized in mental healthcare for displaced populations, in particular for those who have faced conflict-related sexual violence and exploitation. Rina has been editor in chief of the international journal Intervention since January 2023, and is actively facilitating publications by practitioners living and working in areas affected by conflict and crisis. |
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Mike Wessells is Professor Emeritus at Columbia University in the Program on Forced Migration and Health. A long time psychosocial and child protection practitioner, he is former Co-Chair of the IASC Task Force on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Emergency Settings. Formerly, he was co-focal point on mental health and psychosocial support for the revision of the Sphere humanitarian standards. Mike’s current work on community-led child protection emphasizes shifting power to grassroots actors, including children and youth, and the importance of the agency, ownership, and accountability of community stakeholders. |
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Ananda Galappatti is a medical anthropologist and MHPSS practitioner. Ananda is a co-founder and current co-Director of the MHPSS.net online platform. He co-founded the journal Intervention in 2003 and served on its editorial board until 2021. At present, he is also Director of Strategy at The Good Practice Group in Sri Lanka, and is adjunct faculty at the University of Colombo, where he has taught since 2005. Ananda's work has been concerned with improving access to knowledge and skills, building collaborative platforms and enhancing coherence within the MHPSS field - in Sri Lanka and also globally. His work spans the provision and integration of MHPSS across the humanitarian-development-peacebuilding nexus. His current interests focus on how the field of MHPSS can respond to the decolonisation and localisation movements in humanitarian aid and global health. |
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