Health Partnership undertakes various initiatives to develop mental health services in Uganda and the UK, training staff and service users to deliver better services

 This ten year partnership taps into NHS expertise to improve mental health in the UK and Uganda through mutual learning and collaboration. Innovative programmes have provided ideas, resources and training that focus on:

•Building the capabilities, capacity, specialist skills and leadership of mental health workers and other health staff in Uganda

•Introducing psychological therapies throughout Uganda

•Increasing service user involvement in the development of mental health services in Uganda

•Creating dialogue: Building the skills and ideas of ELFT staff through relationships with Butabika Hospital and other Ugandan organisations

•Advocacy: Contributing to national debates about mental health in international development

Spread

 BELL is a trailblazer. The partnership work happens at all levels of the organisation and with a variety of stakeholders. Senior managers of both East London Foundation Trust (ELFT) and Butabika Hospital steer the work, guided by a MoU. The Ugandan Ministry of Health is directly involved in the development and delivery of key programmes. Staff from all levels and disciplines of the partner organisations work on programmes. Over twenty Commonwealth Fellowship visits by Ugandan staff to UK and around 100 UK volunteers in Uganda, several long-term, have strengthened partnership relationships. Ugandan service users are heavily involved and BELL, promotes development of the service user voice with service users coproducing and co-delivering programmes.

 NHS learns from programmes such as PCO training which influence physician associate programmes. UK based diaspora provide leadership and community connection via the Uganda Diaspora Health Foundation. The UK diaspora have held local UK events with faith, health and community organisations to share learning and decrease stigma. BELL has worked directly with various educational institutions including Lancaster University, London School Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Mbarara University of Science and Technology and the School of Psychiatric Clinical Officers. BELL has assisted a massive increase in service capacity by harnessing the expertise of service users to deliver new services and by promoting and expanding expertise in child and adolescent mental health (CAMH).

 The ground-breaking inception of Peer Support Work (PSW) in Kampala and other regions has resulted in service users trained to provide service and to train others over time. The new Advanced Diploma in CAMH has already produced many more trained workers delivering psychological treatments across fourteen regional sites. Another project resulted in training in recognition and management of epilepsy for primary and village health workers in Mbarara region. As well as staff confident in their expertise, BELL has promoted the sharing of good practice by creating new resources:

• National CAMH Policy developed with MOH

• Training manuals, ward policies, safeguarding guidelines

• University-accredited training programmes.

 BELL has provided strong evaluation component to its work with service users trained as Monitoring and Evaluation ‘Buddies’ to help determine the value of the PSW programme, and a national structure for monitoring CAMH service activity. With strong support from ELFT and THET funded projects, BELL continues to fundraise through more traditional means and staff run, cycle, swim to raise money. BELL also sells service user created crafts to fundraise whilst promoting economic empowerment.