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“Policy Uptake Consultation for School Mental Health”
About this event
The National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, NIMHANS (India) and the University of Leeds (UK) jointly host this seminar brought to you by Project SAMA.
Date: Fri 28th July 2023
Time: 10:00am - 3:15pm IST
Venue: NIMHANS (in person)
Cost: Free of charge
School is central to the lives of adolescents, shaping their emotional well-being in complex ways and the school environment is arguably one of the most important ecological contexts that shape the adolescents’ development and life.
At present India lacks a structured school mental health program. Therefore, the research project Safeguarding Adolescent Mental Health in India (SAMA) a collaborative research project between the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bengaluru and the University of Leeds, UK, was planned and implemented.
SAMA (meaning equal in Sanskrit) has designed and is testing an evidence-based whole-school intervention (following the systems approach) to promote adolescent emotional well-being and to address youth anxiety and depression. Project SAMA aims to promote school research and identify implementation facilitator and barriers across the intervention components. Consequently, SAMA has been working with the youth, teachers and parents to promote a positive school culture where young people and the school staff work together to protect the emotional wellbeing of adolescents. SAMA is also trying to analyse various policies that directly impact the lives of the young people. Researchers from the SAMA team are interviewing various policymakers and other stakeholders (e.g., teachers, researchers and other relevant professionals) to understand the ground realities and practical challenges to implementing these policies.
“SAMA is attempting to evaluate ways to upscale its research findings into other districts of the state and how various relevant policies can be brought into play for the same. Some of the policies that have been taken into consideration by SAMA are National Education policy, National Mental Health Policy, and National Suicide Prevention strategy.”
Furthermore, the team is aiming to hold an impact event to demonstrate the research findings and evidence in the forms of short films, narratives of positive lived experiences etc.
Through this event, SAMA also intends to engage the relevant stakeholders including the youth, policymakers, non-governmental organisations members, teachers etc. in fruitful discussions that could generate potential solutions to access barriers. The event will also be an attempt to exemplify the role of youth in the decision-making process which unfortunately at the contemporary period lacks representation. This impact event will also be pivotal for knowledge sharing, collaboration, facilitating suggestions and feedbacks that can map the future road of policy formulation and implementation for SAMA. This can expedite the way for future discourse on relevant policies related to youth’s development and would also assist SAMA to assimilate various viewpoints and work collaboratively.
Who should attend: This event can be attended by stakeholders of adolescent mental health: Block Education officers, Heads of schools, Teachers, Researchers, Mental health professionals, personnel from the NGOs working in the area of school and adolescent mental health and government personnel involved in adolescent well-being and the school environment.
Event Programme
Click here to view the event programme.