Training of trainer's workshop on WHO’s QualityRights, for the Caribbean Countries

7 - 10 May 2024

Brigdetown, Barbados

The Subregional Coordination Program for the Caribbean, in coordination with the Mental Health Unit of the Department of Noncommunicable Diseases and Mental Health (NMH) are coordinating the provision of a training of trainers on WHO´s QualityRights for the Caribbean countries, from 7 to 10 May, 2024, in Brigdetown, Barbados.

The participants are mental health professionals, persons with lived experience and other relevant professionals from English-Speaking Caribbean countries, the Dutch Caribbean Islands and the United Kingdom Overseas territories appointed by the Ministries of Health that previously have completed the Quality Rights e-training.

The objectives of the workshop are:

Build capacity in Member States to understand human rights and mental health from a rights-based approach, recovery, legal capacity, and freedom from violence and coercion, and related topics.
Improve awareness of the current situation of mental health laws, policies in relation to the UN CRPD.
Encourage ongoing training within Member States to build capacities of other mental health care professionals.
Inform future strategies and implementation pathways for countries based on their learnings from QualityRights training.
Foster an inter-sectoral and collaborative approach among stakeholders to improve the mental health services, laws, and policies.

Agenda

Press release

Structure of the training

Strategies to end the use of seclusion and other coercive practices

Define practices in health-care services that constitute seclusion and restraint.
Discuss the physical and psychological impact of seclusion and restraint on people using services and on mental health and social service practitioners.
Understand how seclusion and restraint violate human rights.
Understand and challenge the reasons behind the use of seclusion and restraint in mental health and social services.
Build knowledge and skills on the different strategies that can be implemented in mental health and social services to end seclusion and restraint

Freedom from coercion, violence, and abuse

Understand how and why violence, coercion and abuse occur in mental health and social care settings.
Understand the impact of violence, coercion, and abuse.
Apply knowledge of the CRPD to understand how it protects people with disabilities from violence, coercion, and abuse.
Understand and address attitudes, power relations and dynamics in mental health and social care settings.
Understand and apply different approaches and strategies for diffusing conflictual and tense situations.

About the QualityRights Initiative

QualityRights is an innovative, evidence-based framework by the World Health Organisation to improve quality of mental health services with a rights-based approach. QualityRights aims to improve existing mental health services by reorienting services from a purely biomedical approach to a holistic, comprehensive, and participatory approach that values and places emphasis on empowerment, autonomy, recovery, and an integration into the family and community.

The WHO QualityRights initiative aims at:

building capacity among all stakeholders to improve attitudes and practices to address stigma and discrimination and promote human rights and recovery.
supporting countries in the creation of community-based services and supports that respect and promote human rights.
supporting national policy and law reform in line with the CRPD and other international human rights standards

QualityRights provides a structured, simplified, and practical pathway to apply the principles of the UN Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities (CRPD) to suit the socio-cultural context and needs. It allows for the framework to be adapted and implement as per the contextual requirements and necessities. There are several tools within the QualityRights framework.

QualityRights utilize the following tools for the training:

E-training: that allows for self-learning by participants and provides exposure to various components of rights and recovery based mental health services. The training is hosted on an open-source platform, provides interactive, written, and audio-visual content to support the participant’s learning. It includes a self-administered quiz for each learning concept and provides a certification of completion for each module.
Training of trainers: A four day in-person training session focused on five modules that relate to rights based mental health, legal capacity, recovery, overview of mental health and disability, and freedom from coercion and violence. The training manuals are available on an open-source platform and can be adapted based on the context and needs.

Resources