Two days ago, the World Health Organisation (WHO) published its new guidance on mental health policy and strategic action plans, marking a significant milestone in transforming mental health policies worldwide.

For two decades, the WHO has been promoting the shift away from the medical approach to mental health towards one that aligns with international human rights standards, particularly the UNCRPD. This paradigm shift resulted in the adoption in 2013 of the Comprehensive mental health action plan, later extended to 2030. Additionally, several resolutions advocating for human rights-based reforms were passed within the UN Human Rights Council, culminating in the UN General Assembly’s adoption of a resolution  in June 2023 that calls for urgent actions.

Grounded in international human rights frameworks, particularly the UNCRPD, the new guidance calls countries to reform their mental health systems to ensure non-coercive, ill-treatment, and discriminatory practices, legal capacity, deinstitutionalisation, participation, and community inclusion. Mental Health services must be rights-based, empowering, community-based, person-centred, qualitative, accessible and fully integrated into Universal Health Coverage, ensuring respect for dignity, autonomy of people.

The guidance outlines a comprehensive framework to enhance leadership, governance, service delivery, and workforce capacity in mental health systems. It connects mental health to social and structural determinants like poverty, housing, education, and employment, providing strategies to address these issues, reduce stigma and discrimination, and improve access to care. It stresses the importance of involving people with lived experience in creating inclusive systems and promotes cross-sector collaboration to offer holistic support. This includes integrating lifestyle, physical health, psychological, social, and economic interventions to foster well-being and prevention. In details, it comprises five modules:

• Module 1. Introduction, purpose and use of the guidance. It emphasises the need to align with international human rights frameworks, highlighting essential factors and proposing new directions for equitable, rights-based mental health support.
• Module 2. Key reform areas, directives, strategies, and actions for mental health policy & strategic action plans. It outlines five key policy areas for reform, beginning with an overview of challenges and offering policy directives, strategies, and potential actions for implementation.
• Module 3. Process for developing, implementing, and evaluating mental health policy & strategic action plans. It proposes an inclusive, country-led process that prioritises and tailors’ policy options and strategic planning to national contexts, including checklists for key components and development processes.
• Module 4. Country case scenarios. It presents three examples that highlight varied approaches to mental health policy reform, including the selection and adaptation of directives, strategies, and actions to suit specific local contexts.
• Module 5. Comprehensive directory of policy areas, directives, strategies and actions. It helps stakeholders navigate material from Module 2, facilitating discussions on policy reform and planning.

The guidance is a powerful tool to advocate and nourish policy change but also to support services providers in the delivery of human rights-based mental health services. Module 2 is particularly relevant as it discusses the development, implementation and reorganisation of mental health services to transition from institutionalised care to community services. It also covers providing assessments, interventions, and support that are comprehensive, offer choice, and are responsive to individual needs, ensuring they are rights-based, person-centred, and recovery-oriented. Additionally, the module focuses on human resource and workforce development, aiming to build a diverse, competent, and resilient workforce delivering high-quality mental health services.

You can find the four modules here.