Partner meeting – MEGA | Building capacity by implementing mhGAP mobile intervention in SADC countries

Partner meeting in Cape Town

admin — Fri, 09 Oct 2020 06:22:19 +0000

The 6th face to face MEGA partner meeting, organised by the team from Stellenbosch University, took place between 25 and 27 September 2019. The meeting was held at the Protea Hotel by Marriott in the Cape Town suburb of Durbanville. Twenty-seven attendees, representing all nine of the partner universities took part.

The sessions were interactive and stimulating and resulted in the successful finalisation of the content for the data collection application and work packages four and five. Potential future collaborations were also discussed. On the last day of the meeting, a ‘Train the Trainers’ session was held. The participating primary healthcare practitioners found this to be informative and enjoyable and appreciated being consulted on the training content. They also expressed appreciation for the need for the training. We too are grateful for their willingness to be a part of the MEGA project.

A meeting dinner was arranged at the Radisson Blu Hotel at the Waterfront, where participants got to enjoy the sun and sea while experiencing some of the local cuisines. Fortunately, the unpredictable Cape Town weather played along, making this an enjoyable experience. We hope that after this little taste of Cape Town attendees will come back for more!

Training of trainers workshop in Cape Town

admin — Wed, 18 Dec 2019 14:02:05 +0000

On the 27^th of September 2019, the highly anticipated MEGA “Training the Trainer” workshop was held in Cape Town. In the months leading up, we had worked hard to incorporate all the valuable feedback from primary health care workers and students from Zambia, South Africa and Germany who had taken part in the piloting phase. Participants of the training course in Cape Town consisted of designated future trainers from within each of our partner universities in South Africa and Zambia and (to much of our delight!) a number of local primary mental health care workers. The HAW team conducted the training course and was met with a highly motivated and engaged group of trainees and a lot of expertise already at hand.

Throughout the lengthy preparation phase for the training, there was a growing awareness that the MEGA training needs to offer learning opportunities for a heterogeneous group of trainees with diverse educational and cultural backgrounds. We, therefore, tried to produce compact learning material consisting of sound information about youth mental health issues in a way that opens up a space for discussion and reflection, Most of all we want to equip practitioners with a new skill – how to use the MEGA app. The MEGA curriculum is split up in modules and trainers follow a manual in the form of a powerpoint presentation, which guides them step-by-step through a 6-hour training course. In order to guarantee a level of standardization, trainers should orientate towards the notes and follow the curriculum as much as possible. However, if there is a lack of time, the principle “less is more” applies. If the group of trainees is fairly advanced, the (online) material offers a variety of further readings.

The results of a short evaluation questionnaire all participants filled out after the training day show that the MEGA “Training the Trainer” course in Cape Town proved to be a success. Trainees enjoyed the mix of presentation, large and small group discussion and the hands-on practice session using the app in a role-play setting. They gave valuable feedback for the final revision of the MEGA app, which was appreciated by our partners from Riga who are launching the final version of the app. The MEGA trainers are ready to rumble and the MEGA team is excited to roll out the MEGA training in February 2020!

Partner meeting in Turku

admin — Thu, 25 Apr 2019 05:49:42 +0000

In an icy week in February, a dramatic and interesting meeting of the MEGA project took place in Turku, Finland. Events included: a pilot fainting, a broken shoulder, a twisted ankle, lost luggage, and project partners getting lost all over the city.

During the meeting, it was ascertained that the development of educational material is on schedule. An exciting interactive platform was created which includes free downloads of further reading materials, assessment of mental health disorders, epidemiology of mental health disorders, mental health promotion and services, and concept of mental health.

After a slippery start, we now know we want to have validated screening questions for the app. Riga team is ready for the coding and we are planning to have the beta version of the app ready in April 2019.

Although we still face challenges with ethical approvals in some sites, other parts of the project are moving on. Looking at the preliminary findings from Zambia, the research team realized that there are no screening tools for primary health care workers. In addition, we realized that mental health literacy in primary health care is not adequate.

After the hearty Viking meal, we have set our sails in the Baltic Sea towards the creation and implementation of the app. The sea that lies ahead is vast, but our ship moves steadily towards results!

Partner meeting in Riga

admin — Thu, 14 Feb 2019 08:13:29 +0000

The MEGA partner meeting in Riga marked the end of the 1st year of the project and many important decisions were made regarding further development of the mobile application as well as the training and data-collection phases of the project. It took place from the 14th to the 16th of November 2018 with partners from Finland, Germany, Zambia and South Africa visiting Riga Technical University (RTU) to continue working on the project that commenced in October 2017.

During the meeting the first data-collection results from South Africa were presented by the University of the Free State, marking a new stage in the MEGA project. Since then, other partners from South Africa and Zambia have commenced and implemented data-collection in their regions, providing essential data for further progress of the project.

Numerous important steps were taken in terms of the dissemination of the project activities. Informative videos were made with each partner explaining a topic relevant to the project and the first project newsletter was created and published in the MEGA project website as well as on social media. Colourful MEGA T-shirts, bags, notebooks, smartphone screen-cleaners and other promotional materials were distributed among the partners to advance the dissemination activities in all partner countries and make the MEGA logo more and more recognizable.

A very important part of the meeting was the development of the MEGA mobile application. RTU presented the current status of the app and discussions were held on the necessary adjustments and improvements that need be made. The meeting was a crucial milestone in the project development process, with many important decisions made regarding the final version of the app.

An important part of any capacity building project, such as MEGA, is the exchange of expertise among the partner countries. To inform the partners about the current situation and challenges in the field of child and adolescent psychiatry in Latvia, a presentation and discussion was delivered by Dr. Nikita Bezborodov, one of the leading child psychiatrists in Latvia. Despite the geographical location, many similar challenges and problems can be observed in Latvia, South Africa and Zambia, proving that the impact of MEGA could go far beyond the borders of the countries in question.

Partner meeting at UFS

admin — Thu, 31 May 2018 12:26:59 +0000

The objective of the 3-year MEGA project is to develop and introduce an assessment tool to be used on a smartphone to help treat mental health problems of children and adolescents. The application will be designed to be user-friendly so that primary health care centres in rural areas benefit from it as well. The project will train individuals in the use of the application in universities, who in turn will train healthcare staff in South Africa and Zambia. The project also involves research activities, namely: a doctoral dissertation and Master student thesis.

The three-day project meeting was organized at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, South Africa. TUAS, our European partners from Riga and Hamburg, and three project partners from South Africa and one from Zambia were present at the meeting. During the meeting, updates on the project status were shared, future activities planned and the division of work agreed on. In addition, an expert panel was conducted to validate the questionnaire for mapping mental health services. TUAS and RTU had a chance to become acquainted with a health centre in the suburbs. Nurses carry out excellent work with great professionalism while receiving around 200 patients a day, most of them children. According to the nurses, mental health issues are often completely ignored due to the sensitivity of the issues and lack of time.

Our Bloemfontein colleagues provided a great framework for the meeting. The university campus was functional and quite modern. Our journey went without any difficulties and we were delighted to notice that our project is moving forward, and the project partners are committed to accomplish a common goal.

Kick-off meeting in Pretoria

admin — Fri, 11 May 2018 09:58:20 +0000

The MEGA project was born in Riga in the autumn of 2015 during the European Conference of Mental Health. Mari Lahti and Heikki Ellilä, Principal Lecturers at Turku University of Applied Sciences (TUAS) participated in the conference arrangements and met a colleague from South Africa, Ronelle Jansen. Together they started to consider different opportunities for future project collaboration. Ronelle’s words, “even the poorest of the poor have a smartphone in Africa” stayed in their mind. In fact, these were the words that created the project.

Two years later Mari and Heikki met Ronelle again, this time in Pretoria, during the kick-off meeting of the project. The funding (EUR 1 million) came from the Erasmus+ Capacity Building programme. The primary objective of the project is to improve the mental health of children and young people in southern Africa, particularly in South Africa and Zambia, by developing a mobile phone application for early detection of mental health problems. The app can be used in primary health care services in the most remote regions. During the three-year project, the intention is to teach employees to use the new app by arranging innovation pedagogical training both for higher education teachers and primary health care professionals. After this, the app will be piloted in South Africa and Zambia in six provinces. In addition, the project involves a number of research activities.

In addition to Mari Lahti and Heikki Ellilä, Senior Lecturer Joonas Korhonen from TUAS, the Faculty of Health and Well-being, participated in the project meeting. Anita Narbro and Arina Kiseleva from TUAS RDI Services also work in the project. Kaisa Jokela and Jari Hietaranta participated in drafting the application and planning the project. Many thanks to all the participants. The other participating universities are Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (HAW) from Germany, Riga Technical University (RTU) from Latvia, the University of Zambia (UNZA) and Lusaka Apex Medical University (LAMU) from Zambia, and the University of Pretoria (UP), University of Cape Town (UCT), Stellenbosch University (SU) and the University of Free State (UFS) from South Africa.

Representatives from all partner universities participated in the kick-off meeting. The participants’ expertise in mental health work is of extremely high level and their commitment to the project is also strong. The meeting took three days and was full of lively discussions and teamwork. Working with a large group is challenging. The discussion tends to meander and a range of different viewpoints are highlighted. However, in this meeting a consensus was reached regarding main directions and plans for proceeding were outlined. During the evenings, all participants got to know one another while having dinner together. There was luckily enough free time to visit some local sights, go to theatre and attend a small-scale safari.

We would like to thank our Pretoria host, Dr Gerhard Grobler, who took care of all arrangements, additional programme and us, the foreign visitors. As a “host of most”, his hospitality was beyond comparison.