The model has been initiated to increase access to and availability of child and adolescent mental health and protection support and services
Highlighting the SAMVAD model by NIMHANS, a recent paper published in The Lancet Regional Health – Southeast Asia has said that this model is the way forward to strengthening the nation’s response to child and adolescent mental health (CAMH) issues.
Titled ‘A transdisciplinary public health model for child and adolescent mental healthcare in low and middle income countries’, the paper was published on June 17.
SAMVAD (Support, Advocacy and Mental health interventions for children in Vulnerable circumstances And Distress) is a model of inter-sectoral collaboration and technology leveraging to build capacity of child care workers. Carved out from the erstwhile Community Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service project, a collaborative project of NIMHANS and Karnataka’s Department of Women and Child Development, SAMVAD was principally approved by the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development in October 2019.
K. John Vijay Sagar, professor and Head of the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at NIMHANS who is the principal investigator of the project, told The Hindu that the model is a unique initiative that serves as a resource for the country. “It has been initiated to increase access to and availability of child and adolescent mental health and protection support and services through the use of integrated approaches to child well-being,” he said.
“This model applies innovative teaching and learning methods of participatory, creative and skill-based pedagogies, to deliver training programs focusing on the fundamentals of child mental health and protection work that is relevant to low and middle income countries (LMICs). The model explains frameworks and methodologies that make the training and capacity building done by SAMVAD scalable and standardised while allowing for adaptation of materials to specific professional needs and functions of various types of child care workers and service providers,” Dr. Sagar explained.
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