Research and Innovation
MENTAL HEALTH FIRST AID
In South Africa, there is one social worker per 23 000 in public schools.
1 : 23 000
In 2023 and 2024, in partnership with National Treasury's Jobs Fund, COMMUNITY KEEPERS implemented the BUILD BACK BETTER MAC Advisory recommendation (May 2022): “The implementation of non-professional interventions within a framework of psychological first aid. Such interventions involve training community members to identify mental health signs and symptoms, are cost-effective and lend themselves to task-shifting models.”
Mental health is too important to be left to the professionals alone". Prof Vikram Patel , Harvard University
ACADEMIC RESEARCH in partnership with Universities of Bath, Cape Town and Stellenbosch
SA teens are struggling with symptoms of depression Mirriam Mkhize, Claire van der Westhuizen and Katherine Sorsdah, August 2024
The impact of the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic on referral patterns and therapeutic service provision for children and young people’s psychosocial distress in a Low-or Middle-Income Country: A service evaluation of routinely collected data from a non-government organisation operating in schools in the Western Cape, South Africa Emma Wilson, Maria E. Loades (University of Bath) et al, July 2024
4 Steps To My Future (4STMF): protocol for a universal school-based pilot and feasibility study of a CBT-based psychoeducational intervention to support psychological well-being amongst young adolescents in the Western Cape, South Africa, Bronwynè J. Coetzee, Maria E. Loades, Suzanne Human, Hermine Gericke, Helene Loxton, Gerrit Laning, Naomi Myburgh & Paul Stallard, May 2022
Four Steps To My Future (4STMF): acceptability, feasibility and exploratory outcomes of a universal school‐based mental health and well‐being programme, delivered to young adolescents in South Africa in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Bronwynè Coetzee, Maria Loades, Suzanne Human, Hermine Gericke, Gerrit Laning, Martin Kidd, Paul Stallard, 13 July 2023
A description highlighting the psychosocial problems experienced by learners in three secondary schools in the Western Cape Philip Geldenhuys, Annemarie Youngleson, June 2014