School Health Implementation Network: Eastern Mediterranean

World Health Organization (WHO) School Mental Health Program (SMHP) is a manual based multi-component, multi-tiered and evidence-informed intervention for common mental health problems in school going children. SMHP is designed to be introduced into the normal classroom and school setting by trained teachers. The intervention has a universal component which takes a whole school approach that aims to promote mental health among all school children. It includes basic counseling skills for teachers, core values of mental health promoting schools and other health promoting efforts that impact upon mental health and can be administered to all students in school and classroom settings. The manual also contains targeted intervention strategies on anxiety, separation anxiety/ school refusal, post-trauma, depression, suicide, ADHD, autism, psychosis, conduct problems and substance use problems that can be implemented by teachers in classroom settings.

Informed by the results of pilot implementation, a number of content and delivery adaptations have been made to the School Mental Health Program (SMHP) to address the implementation challenges to scale-up of program in Pakistan. The adapted version of the intervention is called Enhanced School Mental Health Program (eSMHP). Enhancements to conventional SMHP have occurred at two levels: A) Content enhancements, such as a collaborative care model for engaging parents/primary caregivers, strategies for teacher's well-being, and adaptation and operationalization of particular clinical intervention strategies and B) Technological enhancements which include adaptation of the training manual for delivery using an online training platform, and a 'Chat-bot' to aid the implementation of intervention strategies in classroom settings.