This month's Global Mental Health Speaker Series presenters discuss three collaborative projects that create access to mental health care in East African community settings.

WHO EQUIP: Pamela Collins and Tessa Concepcion will discuss the UW and University of Nairobi project with the World Health Organization (WHO) on Ensuring Quality in Psychological Support (EQUIP), where community health volunteers are trained to deliver TF-CBT to children in Nairobi. This WHO initiative studies models of competency-based training for health workers delivering psychological therapies in seven sites around the world.

BASIC: Shannon Dorsey  will discuss the NIMH-funded study, “Building and Sustaining Interventions for Children (BASIC)” in Bungoma, Kenya. This study aims to identify implementation strategies associated with successful implementation. The study team tested the implementation of Trauma-focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT), delivered via task-sharing, in two governmental sectors prioritized by Kenyan partners as potential options for scale up— Education and Health Extension.

SAIA: Brad Wagenaar and Vasco Cumbe will discuss an innovative project focused on improving the quality of mental healthcare delivery in Mozambique. The project, "Systems Analysis and Improvement Approach" (SAIA), focuses on specifying the interlinked "cascade of care" steps that a patient needs to accomplish for effective mental healthcare, and working with healthcare workers to optimize their own cascade at their health facility. Initial results of a pilot study have recently shown that the SAIA approach led to significant improvements in the mental health treatment cascade within Ministry of Health clinics in Mozambique.

We are excited to have Vasco Cumbe, MD, MSc, PhDc as a special guest for this event. Dr. Cumbe is a practicing Mozambican psychiatrist who is the Director of Mental Health Services for the Sofala Provincial Health Department – directing all public-sector mental healthcare for a province of >2 million individuals and >150 clinics. Dr. Cumbe has been a leader in the Ministry of Health public-sector mental health system since 2007. He has been collaborating with Dr. Brad Wagenaar and Health Alliance International on implementation research for mental health systems improvement in Mozambique since 2013. He is also currently completing his PhD at the Federal University of Sao Paulo in Brazil and is a Fogarty D43 fellow.