Family Mental Health

Society for Pre and Post Natal Services (SPANS) has impacted nearly 50,000 men and women in the community and at 4 primary health care facilities in the Goromonzi district during our COVID-19 and Community Family Mental Health. Currently we are targeting women, fathers, and babies in Goromonzi District (Peri-Uban and Rural) who come for their routine antenatal and post-natal care visits at the clinic. We have limited our mobile campaigns due lack of financial support to support our community activities. SPANS also works with pregnant mothers and their partners by increasing mental health literacy/education, early identification, supporting, referral, and home visits.

Community Awareness Raising:

In 2020, we developed the “Covid-19 Community Family Mental Health Awareness Response” that entails awareness campaigns on mental health and Covid and provides mental health education and support to the community and front-line workers by using a van, loudspeakers and open-air discussions. Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic we have reached more than 10k people in Goromonzi District, Harare, Zimbabwe.

SPANS is investing in the prevention of mental health conditions so that the education system, life expectancy of the population, mentally sound generation, good parenting and all sectors of the economy will benefit.  Our programme includes activities that address ‘upstream’ social determinants of mental health, such as increased mental health literacy/education, early identification of risk of common perinatal mental health conditions in women followed by provision of specialized support (family therapy) coupled with appropriate ongoing mental health support, parenting programmes, referral, home visits and alleviation of poverty. We also focus on ‘downstream’ measures, such as those to support coping strategies of families or family based interventions for the whole family and individuals already at risk of poor mental health to promote and protect sound mental health.

• COVID19_AND_COMMUNITY_FAMILY_MENTAL_HEALTH_September_2022_report.pdf (PDF)
  

This report is being generated by the SPANS team to inform donations and the general community who had committed their precious financial resource towards our fundraising drive about what we used their funds and what is required to adequately make mental health care services available, accessible to the mothers’, fathers’ and their babies and families.

We have impacted nearly 50,000 mothers and fathers through the 4 Primary Health Care (PHC) clinics with mental health literacy and more than 2,050 families through family therapy sessions coupled with subsequent sessions. Working directly in the communities, SPANS has provided more than 8,000 mothers and fathers mental health literacy, we had so recruited and trained 350 family mental health therapists and provided 150 family therapy sessions.

With this funding from the Bank of America Charitable Gift Fund, SPANS is invested in the prevention of mental health conditions so that the education system, life expectancy of the population, mentally sound generation, good parenting and all sectors of the economy will benefit.  Our programme includes activities that address ‘upstream’ social determinants of mental health, such as increased mental health literacy/education, early identification of risk of common perinatal mental health conditions in women followed by provision of specialized support (family therapy) coupled with appropriate ongoing mental health support, parenting programmes, referral, home visits and alleviation of poverty. We also focus on ‘downstream’ measures, such as those to support coping strategies of families or family based interventions for the whole family and individuals already at risk of poor mental health to promote and protect sound mental health.

• project_report_for_COVID19_and_Community_family_mental_health_47047_JUNE_2022.pdf (PDF)