Nowadays, guaranteeing the mental health and wellbeing of students in higher education is one of precarious issues in the supporting services.  Also, the demand for supporting mental health among students and staff in our community is considered an open culture in society concerning. Students and staff often experience high level of stress and potential events that need to be managed in the patterns of their daily life. The occasional feelings of anxiety, stress, or mild depression among students and staff should seek help if such feelings affect daily activities over a prolonged period. 

 

The National Mental Health Programme 

 

About 

The National Mental Health Programme (NMHP) was launched in May 2014 within the Ministry of Public Health with the support of the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, and International Medical Corps (IMC), with the aim of reforming mental health care in Lebanon and providing services beyond medical treatment at the community level, in line with Human Rights and the latest evidence for best practices. 

 NMHP Vision: All people living in Lebanon will have the opportunity to enjoy the best possible mental health and well-being.   

  Working towards this vision, the NMHP has launched in May 2015, after a process involving all key stakeholders in the country, a Mental Health and Substance Use Prevention, Promotion, and Treatment Strategy for Lebanon for the period of 2015-2020.  

 Mission: to ensure the development of a sustainable mental health system that guarantees the provision and universal accessibility of high quality mental health curative and preventive services through a cost-effective, evidence-based and multidisciplinary approach, with an emphasis on community involvement, continuum of care, human rights, and cultural relevance.  

 The implementation of this Strategy is successfully ongoing since its launching. 

 The NMHP has also coordinated the development of the “Inter-ministerial Substance Use Response Strategy for Lebanon 2016-2021” launched jointly in December 2016 by the ministries of Public Health, Social Affairs, Interior and Municipalities, Justice and Education. The implementation of this Strategy has been initiated. 

Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Indicators 

The Mental Health and Psycho Social (MHPSS) indicators are designed to monitor the accessibility to and quality of the available MHPSS services provided by MHPSS non-governmental and humanitarian actors. 
  
The main purposes of these indicators are: 
– To monitor the access of persons with mental disorders to doctors trained on Mental Health Gap Action Program (mhGAP), psychologists and psychiatrists 
– To monitor the trend of mental health diagnosis 
– To follow-up on specific vulnerable groups and decrease risk of relapses and suicide 
– To empower the persons with mental disorders and their caregivers 
– To increase reporting of persons benefiting from psychosocial activities through reporting on some Child Protection (CP) indicators related to PSS activities 
 - To increase the number of staff trained on evidence based mental health interventions 
 - To increase the number of staff benefiting from staff care activities 

 

Al Zahraa Hospital 

In its good practice guide for student and staff mental well-being in higher education, IUL by collaboration with Al-Zahraa Hospital Yearly organized a scientific day in World Mental Health Day for all staff and students about how to deal with conflict situations from the psychological point of view.