Psychosocial Support Therapy
Providing support such as basic needs to those admitted to the ward and not able to care for themselves, knowledge giving to all patients, physical excises workouts, and formation of patient support groups. This is to improve drug adherence of patients, create self-confidence, and reduce stigma.
Psychosocial support is one of the therapy methods used to help patients cope with mental challenges. We have developed means of standing with patients with mental illnesses to help them walk the journey of recovery in our program called “We are together” and we do the following activities
Key areas of focus
Workout days
To support the recovery of mental illness patients, we started a workout program at the mental wards of hospitals. One is Masaka Regional Referral Hospital, the first hospital where we are implementing this program.
During this activity, mental health champions are assigned to hospitals to take patients through physical exercises/ drills twice a month for patient physical fitness. The drills take about two hours at the ward premises and after a drill session, a trained mental health champion talks to patients with a message of hope.
Key areas of focus
Hope Fund
With Hope Fund, we reach out to patients who are lonely and have no one caring for them at the hospital. These are sometimes brought by the police from the streets, those who were abandoned at the health facilities by their families, and those rescued from family members who maltreated them, among others. We support them with basic needs such as clothing, soap, and some food items to help them as they undergo treatment at the facility.
What We Do
We create and build communities of mental health champions by empowering individuals in their immediate communities to fight mental illness stigma.
We create an environment where people live free from mental health stigma and can freely seek health services.