Contents
Sigrid Kaag

Mental health and psychosocial support is vital for our individual and collective well-being, especially now.

Alastair Ager

The tensions and challenges involved in the development over recent decades of the field of practice now known as mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) will continue to shape questions of implementation, prioritisation and impact.

Sarah Harrison, William S Chemaly, Fahmy Hanna, Nancy Polutan-Teulières and Peter Ventevogel

Fostering the mental health and psychosocial well-being – within a comprehensive protective response – of people affected by humanitarian emergencies requires multi-sectoral action and coordination.

Nancy Baron

In complicated urban contexts, organisations must redesign established models of MHPSS intervention in order to ensure that services are accessible to the most vulnerable and are context-specific. It is not possible merely to move camp-designed interventions to the urban context.

Joanne Michelle F Ocampo, Mhd Nour Audi and Mike Wessells

Culture bias can reduce programme effectiveness and potentially cause serious harm to already vulnerable communities.

Danielle Falk, Paul Frisoli and Emily Varni

Teachers play a paramount role in providing MHPSS to their students and in sustaining resilient education systems – and supporting teachers’ own well-being is essential if they are to fulfil this role.

Leonie Harsch, Corrie van der Ven and Olivia Wilkinson

Faith and spirituality are part of many people’s identities and everyday lives, and faith sensitivity is integral to providing holistic, people-centred MHPSS in humanitarian situations.

Kathleen Rutledge, Sandra Iman Pertek, Mohammad Abo-Hilal and Atallah Fitzgibbon

With religious identity, practices and beliefs having a profound impact on mental health, faith sensitivity in aid and MHPSS is essential.

Emilie Venables, Katherine Whitehouse, Caterina Spissu, Lilian Pizzi, Ahmad Al Rousan and Stefano di Carlo

Cultural mediation is critical to optimising both access to and quality of mental health services.

Alina Potts, Rassil Barada and Angela Bourassa

Underlying gender and power imbalances that put displaced women and girls at risk of gender-based violence (GBV) are exacerbated by vulnerabilities related to legal status, economic security, access to services, and living conditions.

Dmytro Nersisian, Marine Ragueneau, Heide Rieder and Guglielmo Schinina’

The limits of operating within humanitarian contexts do not always allow for sufficient time and resources to be devoted to the participatory processes that are vital to establishing community-based approaches to MHPSS.

Simon Rosenbaum, Alastair Ager, Leslie Snider, Ajwang Warria, Holly Collison, Sabrina Hermosilla and Davy Vancampfort

Physical activity (including sport) is an evidence-based yet under-recognised strategy for protecting and promoting MHPSS among displaced populations.

Jordan Balletto, Hannah Bergbower, Alice Tang and Fernando Ona

The pandemic has placed significant additional mental and emotional burdens on forced migrants. MHPSS interventions must be adapted to meet this challenge and not be overlooked in the wake of containment and mitigation efforts.

Janna Metzler, Aimyleen Gabriel, Frieda Mwebe and Kevin Savage

While COVID-19 is not currently perceived as a serious disease threat to children, its indirect effects as a pandemic on their lives and psychosocial well-being may be profound. Child-friendly spaces may therefore be all the more important, particularly in fragile contexts of displacement.

Costanza Torre

While the combination of therapy and livelihood creation may appear to be beneficial for refugees’ mental health, the reality in Uganda has been rather different.

General Articles
Ewen Macleod

In recent decades substantial advances have been made by the humanitarian and development communities in terms of gathering and using data to underpin programming. Significant challenges and gaps remain, however, requiring new approaches and partnerships.

Felix Schmieding

There are huge benefits to be gained from producing statistics that are familiar to, and usable by, governments and development partners.

Natalia Krynsky Baal

The recent endorsement of international statistical recommendations on refugees and IDPs will help systematise the inclusion of these vulnerable groups in national policy and development agendas. Much work needs to be done, however, to move the recommendations from paper into practice.

Jeffery C Tanner

Phone surveys can be particularly useful in times – such as during the current pandemic – when it is difficult to conduct face-to-face surveys, but can present challenges.

Additional Articles

There are many challenges that hinder documentation of migrant deaths and disappearances but also much that can be done to improve the coverage and completeness of such data.

Andrea Garcia Borja and Julia Black

Administrative and ethical barriers to DNA data sharing for identification of migrants found along the US–Mexico border exemplify the need for long-term solutions and sustainable processes.

Sara H Katsanis, Diana Madden, Courtney C Siegert, Eduardo Canales and Kate Spradley

The disappearance of people on migration journeys has reverberating effects on their family and community.

Marta Sánchez Dionis and Kate Dearden

The pandemic has posed additional challenges for bereaved migrant families who mourn the death or disappearance of their loved ones. There are practical ways, however, to assist them.

Danai Angeli

A strengthened commitment to coordination and collaboration is essential if actors are to be more effective in locating missing migrants and assisting their families. New initiatives offer a path forward.

Sylvie van Lammeren and Florian von König

 

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Opinions in FMR do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors, the Refugee Studies Centre or the University of Oxford.
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