Brain Gain Project is funded through the Health Partnership Scheme, which is in turn funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and managed by the Tropical Health and Education Trust (THET)
The initial two-year peer working scheme (2012-13) trained ex-patients to provide home visits and ward-based outreach in Kampala, improving the scale and quality of service provision while tackling stigma and discrimination.
The success of this initial programme has resulted in a further successful DFID/THET grant that will see the inception of Africa's first Mental Health Recovery College, the extension of the Peer Working scheme into the wards of Butabika Hospital, and capacity-building for regional mental health services to understand and apply peer working in their contexts.
The Butabika Hospital based Recovery College, launched in 2015, offers recovery-oriented training and education courses to patients, staff, carers and the general public. These courses are coproduced by trained staff and experts by experience, and revolve around Ugandan recovery themes generated through a specially commissioned Recovery Listening Event designed by the Sharing Stories group and Lancaster University.
In the spirit of peer leadership that guides all aspects of the project's design and implementation, partners at the Centre for Global Mental Health of London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine are building the capacity of PSWs and staff to carry out a rigorous evaluation using a Theory of Change methodology. This may be the first example in sub-Saharan Africa of a mental health project engaging people with lived experience as peer evaluators, rather than simply as research subjects.
Find out more by watching the video below of Ugandan Peer Champions. For more information on the Brain Gain initiative contact project lead Dr Dave Baillie at dave.baillie@elft.nhs.uk