Assessing mental health and psychosocial needs & resources.WHO-UNHCR

Mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) is a term used to describe a wide range of actions that address social, psychological and psychiatric problems that are either pre-existing or emergency-induced. These actions are carried out in highly different contexts by organizations and people with different professional backgrounds, in different sectors and with different types of resources. All these different actors – and their donors – need practical assessments leading to recommendations that can be used immediately to improve people’s mental health and well-being.

This document is written primarily for public health actors. As the social determinants of mental health and psychosocial problems occur across sectors, half of the tools in the accompanying toolkit cover MHPSS assessment issues relevant to other sectors as well as the health sector.

This document should help you to collect the necessary information to assist people affected by humanitarian crises more effectively.