Expert by Experience Action Group
on the Deinstitutionalisation of Mental Health Care
The Expert by Experience Action Group (EEAG) on Deinstitutionalisation is coordinating targeted actions to accelerate the transition from the overreliance on institutions towards rights-based, primary and community-based mental health care. The group will provide evidence, policy guidance, and advocacy support to national partners and international organizations, aiming to influence legislation, financing priorities, and service delivery models.
Veronica Cho
Senior Lead, Health Policy Strategies & Solutions - Ontario Hospital Association, Canada
Action Group Co-Chairs
Grace Gatera
Lived Experience Consultant - My Mind Our Humanity, Rwanda
Aims
The Group is currently being set up and will be refining its priorities. Its founding aims includes:
To work towards mental health system reforms, around the world, ending institutionalisation and replacing it with human rights based, person-centered care at all levels.
To create opportunities for people with lived experience of institutionalisation to share their stories and contribute to all matters of social inclusion and participation that affect them.
To foster collaborations between members working towards deinstitutionalisation in their countries.
To encourage sharing of knowledge, resources, and best practices on ending institutionalisation.
To co-create a shared language and evidence base to support advocacy to ending institutionalisation at national and global levels.
To identify the top priorities in deinstitutionalisation and establish a collective voice that brings together people working in different spaces in an effort to reduce silos and harmonize advocacy efforts.
To mobilise the necessary financing required to end institutionalisation.
Background
In most countries, mental health care is still heavily focused on long-stay psychiatric institutions. Institutionalisation is often found in community-based and informal care settings, such as community care homes and prayer camps. Not only is this type of care provision considered outdated and inappropriate, but there are also considerable documented examples of human rights abuses in a range of countries and settings.
To address this, GMHAN is creating a coordinated “Expert by Experience Action Group (EEAG) on the Deinstitutionalisation of Mental Health Care” driven by people with lived experience of institutionalisation. This will be a structured group supporting advocacy at regional, national, and global levels. It will focus on ending the harmful practices often associated with institutionalisation by advancing rights-based, person-centred, community-based mental health care that respects the dignity and self-determination of people living with mental illness.
Registration for this Action Group is open!
If you have direct experience of institutionalisation and are interested in joining the EEAG, please complete this expression of interest form. This work is also open to individuals with indirect experience as a family member or caregiver.
You have to already be (or become) a member of the Global Mental Health Action Network to joing this Action Group. Join us now.
Recommended links:
United for Global Mental Health: “Out of Sight, Out of Mind: The human rights case for ending institutionalisation in mental healthcare”