About this Research Topic
The UN Sustainable Development Goals emphasize universal health coverage integrating health to poverty, education, access and social justiceissues (Goals 1, 3, 4, 5). These goals advocate that international collaborative partnerships (Goals 10 and 17) promoting quality education and health access for all (specifically integrated care in primary health centres) in LICs and LMICs would be the way towards strengthening CAMH. International organizations like WHO and UNICEF promote the idea of looking at youth as old as 25 years old as part of an extended adolescent period in order to understand global developmental trajectories with rigor and sociocultural sensitivity. There is also endorsement of the Care for Child Development (UNICEF/WHO, 2012) and HEADSS framework endorsed (home environment, education, activities and drug use and abuse, sexuality, suicidality and depression) (World Health Organization Accelerated Action for the Health of Adolescents, AA-HA! 2017) to appraise adolescent development in LMIC better. The Care for Child Development outlines parenting and early childhood development strategies that can be useful in contexts were resource and time constraints limit parental ability to provide care. HEADSS on the other hand suggests that any appraisal of adolescents should include home environment, education, activities and drug use and abuse, sexuality, suicidality and depression as thematics.
For this issue, we are inviting contributions focusing on global protocols on child and adolescent protection and mental health care guidelines such as WHO AA-HA!, WHO Comprehensive Mental Health Action Plan and mhGAP as ways to bolster quality mental health care and services. The utilization of these protocols to enforce best practices and culturally adapted novel treatments, implementation strategies to increase uptake of services as a way of serving the CAMH. Minoritized, neglected populations such as those living with HIV, young mothers and pregnant adolescents, LGBTQ and refugee and displaced children, children and adolescents with disabilities are also of interest to this call. The care framework for such populations is of especial interest and so is the long-term sustainment of mental health systems. Contributions focusing on the on girl-child and the gaps in addressing the unique needs and empowerment of boychild and young men for creating health and gender equity are also welcome.
Our call is specially interested in issues around the following but not restricted to the following themes:
• Critical appraisal of existing services, infrastructure and expenditure on CAMH
• Differential needs of children and adolescents
• Integrating pediatric, child & adolescent services with mental health in LICs and LMICs
• Culturally responsive diagnoses, measurement tools and treatment interventions
• Implementation studies on testing mental health education in schools and community contexts
• Global protocols and guidelines of CAMH and the local translational challenges and achievements
• School mental health and the link between school, family and the health facility
• Addressing needs of minoritized child and adolescent populations especially those explosed to conflicts, disasters and forced migration
• Theory of change around integrated, collaborative care and stepped care models
• Steps taken to address stigma and discrimination for early detection and diagnosis of mental health disorders in primary care or specialist facilities
• Conceptual framework for testing and evaluating CAMH interventions and D & I strategies at multiple levels
Keywords: Child and adolescent mental health, health services, treatment, disorders, culture
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