Is the Global Mental Health field missing the eLearning boat?
Is the Global Mental Health field missing the eLearning boat?
There is a huge shortage of well trained mental health workers in low and middle income countries(LMIC). Liberia and Eritrea, for example, have only one psychiatrist for the whole population. Mental health education facilities in LMIC are often not present or inadequate. And since most people in LMIC are not able to travel and study oversee, one must look for cheap, feasible and local solutions to fill this immense capacity gap. ICT learning programs/applications seem part of the answer, but what is the state of art here?
1: The academic courses and degrees: There are many institutes throughout the world that offer online degrees and certificates, for example the MSc Mental Health Distance learning program of the Queen Mary University in London. But the costs (this one 13.000 USD a year), the education-level and international recognition varies a lot. It seems that only programs with international funding or involvement of NGOs are affordable for the average student in LMIC.
2: Additional training of academics and policy makers: A lot of LMIC are trying to reorganize their mental health care to more affordable and feasible services. Special courses and training are needed to facilitate this process. A very few organizations offer this kind of competence education, (partial) online, like the Mental Health Policy and Service International master in Portugal. But again, costs can spin out of control.
3: Ongoing supervision and on the job training: The current/new mental health policy in most LMIC is one where high educated, often urban professionals, manage and support low educated, often rural/local health workers. For this distant management, ICT offers ample opportunities and eLearning is one of them. The examples I could find here are the Mental Health First Aid eLearning course (now on CD, but in the future online) and the Pilot Project of Telepsychiatry in Brazil.
4: Informal learning and Open Education Resources: There are many successful examples here like Open Source Ware and Communities of Practice, but there are only a very few examples that focus on mental health topics. Although one can stumble on thousands of mental health hits from international journals, wikis, and blogs, and learn a lot, there are no certificates or degrees connected to them.
Results:
Yes, Global Mental health seems to miss the boat; the mental health eLearning field for LMIC is still fragmented and immature.
For the future:
More attention, initiatives and capacity building in this area seems essential.
One must not invent the wheel again; better share, lend and copy from other health fields.
International cooperation and multi-level partnerships seems both imperative.
Central planning and alignment of accreditation is needed.
Attention for local circumstances and the financial situation of LMIC student and staff is crucial for success.
Lay health practitioners are and will be the ‘spine of mental health care’ in LMIC. Targeting them in elearning programs can give the mental health care in low-income countries the boost that is so urgently needed.
(Photo: John Stephen Oluoch, Kenya, 4th prize in photo contest eLearning-Africa Summit 2011)
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