STARS-C
Starting from the bottom: Using Participatory Action Research to re-imagine local mental health services in Colombia
Project Summary
Four years into the transition towards a post-conflict society in Colombia, barriers to the implementation of the Psychosocial Care and Comprehensive Health Services for Victims programme (PAPSIVI) and the Psychosocial Wellbeing Component in the reintegration route for ex-combatants (Resolution n. 4309) persist.
Scaling-up services is important but only a partial response; sustainable solutions require dialogue between systems and communities to improve mental health.
In response to these demands, our project will implement and evaluate a participatory intervention to strengthen community mental health care systems in two territories which are currently the focus of Territorially Focused Development Plans (PDETs in Spanish) in Caquetá-Colombia.
We will work with local organisations Corpomanigua, a women’s community based organisation that works to enhance human rights, build peace, and increase gender equality, and The Cooperative for Good Living and Peace in Caqueta (COOMBUVIPAC).
Our primary outcome will be the implementation of an intervention which allows us to leverage and integrate different types of knowledge and expertise, including lived experiences, in the design and implementation of community mental health services.
STARS-C will innovate by integrating bottom-up, community level experiences of mental health and mental distress with institutional responses by state level actors, analysing the potentials and challenges of this integration in an intervention towards effective community mental health services.
Visit our website: https://www.stars-c.com/
Key Project Information
Dates: 1st February 2021 - 1st June 2023
UCL lead/Principal Investigator: Dr Rochelle Burgess
Partners: LSE Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science, Los Andes University, Corpomanigua and COOMBUVIPAC
Location: UK and Colombia
Funding: ESRC/UKRI – Minciencias (Colombia)
Contact: r.burgess@ucl.ac.uk and n.verasanjuan@ucl.ac.uk
UK applicants and team members:
IGH
Dr. Rochelle Burgess, PI Dr. Norha Vera San Juan, Research Fellow
COOMBUVIPAC
Mr Diego Ferney Tovar, Co-ICorpomanigua
Ms Nubia Chacón, Co-I- Diego Lucumí Cuesta, Co-I
Colombia applicants and team members:
Los Andes University
LSE
Prof. Sandra Jovchelovitch, Co-PI Ms Laura Fonseca, Research OfficerSTARS-C Webinar Series
Starting from the bottom: Debating the foundations of mental health service improvements in complex settings
Over the next year, the STARS-C project team will coordinate a webinar series that explore three areas that are key to the process of mental health service improvement, but rarely given the space needed to debate the complexities of these core issues that determine the success of efforts for service improvement: (1) Realities of community mental health systems; (2) community involvement in intervention and service design; and (3) measuring impact.
Each webinar will feature speakers from countries in the Global South, alongside members of the STARS-C team reflecting on their efforts and responses to work through these challenges. We will also include opportunities for small group discussion to allow speaks to reflect on how these topics impact their own work settings.
This webinar series is open to practitioners, policy makers, academic and members of the general public with an interest in the advancements of community led and community owned mental health systems.
Webinar series
Episode 1: Policy in the Everyday: Exploring the realities of 'community' mental health systems in the Global South
Episode 2: Community involvement in intervention and service design: possibilitites and pitfalls
Date TBCEpisode 3: Measuring impact on whose terms? The reality of impact measures for community change
Date TBCPublications
Press Release
