Support and Independence in the Community
Workstream 2
Dr Hanna Kienzler leads this project using multi-site ethnography to explore the meanings of independence, community and support for persons with mental problems across socio-cultural contexts in Ghana, the occupied Palestinian territory, and the UK. The research will identify community resources for persons with mental health problems and barriers to social inclusion.
Background
Persons with mental health problems have the right to live independently in the community and to make choices about their lives. To achieve this, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) requires that countries provide support to ensure that people can choose where they live; have access to support and services; and can use facilities available to the general population. However, little is currently known about what “independence”, “community” and “support” mean across socio-cultural contexts and what barriers and resources impact people’s ability to access support and live in their communities.
Approach
Our project uses ethnography and participatory approaches in the West Bank of the occupied Palestinian territory, Ghana and the UK combined with legal and philosophical analysis to explore the diverse meanings, barriers and resources to help resolve tensions between protecting vulnerability and respecting independence and realising the right to be included in the community in meaningful ways.
The objectives of the project are:
To explore how “independence”, “community” and “support” are conceptualised in different sociocultural contexts, legal documents and philosophical debates, and how these affect the lives of persons with mental health problems and their families.
To understand the barriers and resources which impact on the ability of persons with mental health problems and their families to live as active citizens with equal respect in the community.
Together with beneficiaries and civil society, to articulate the content of the rights associated with living in the community and the practical means of their realisation to enable future policy to better realise the conditions through which social integration may be possible.
Informed by ethnographic and legal analyses, develop a normative understanding of the moral/human right of persons with mental health problems to live with and among others in the community.
Outcomes
Our research will contribute to developing a locally relevant and comparative evidence-base giving insight into what it means for persons with mental health problems to live in the community as well as the kinds of services and support structures that could provide meaningful assistance to improve people’s lives and wellbeing.
We will develop interdisciplinary and implementation focused outputs including:
- Detailed reports on the experiences of persons with mental problems in different cultural settings
- Policy guidance for national and international users aiming to realise social integration
- Innovative training materials for health professionals and social workers
- Academic publications
- Illustrated storyboards and films developed with participants to convey their experience of living with mental health problems in the community.
Additional outcomes include (a) the development of innovative research methods and (b) sophisticated application of ethnographic research methods to a significant question in public health and policy, creating a precedent for future research directions.
Publications
Kienzler, H., Mitwalli, S., & Cicek, M. (2022).
Experience of people with psychosocial disabilities with independent living and community inclusion in war-affected settings: A literature review.
International Journal of Law and Psychiatry.
Mental Health and Justice Workstream 2 (2021).
When justice fails. Violence and mental health in Palestine.
Wynne-Bannister, E., & Venkatapuram, S. (2020)
Grounding the right to live in the community (CRPD Article 19) in the capabilities approach to social justice.
International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 69, 101551.
Flood, Colleen M., Vanessa MacDonnell, Jane Philpott, Sophie Thériault, and Sridhar Venkatapuram, eds. (2020)
Vulnerable. The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19.
Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press.
Recent activity
Capacity and independence in crisis situations: in conversation with Hanna Kienzler
In this ‘in conversation’ with Dr Hanna Kienzler, we discuss her work in Palestine as part of the Mental Health and...
Keynote Address: Realising Health Justice for Older People - Sridhar Venkatpuram
Human Development & Capability Association. 30 June 2020....
Ageing justice after COVID-19 - Sridhar Venkatapuram
Priority in Practice, 22-23 June. Oxford University. https://www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/events/priority-practice-2020
Workstream members
Hanna Kienzler
Principal investigator
Lecturer in the Department of Social Science, Health and Medicine at KCL. Hanna has expertise in ethnography and social and cultural aspects of community mental health including development contexts and regions affected by armed conflict. She has conducted long-term anthropological fieldwork in Palestine. Hanna will lead on Workstream 2 and contribute widely across the research network.
Genevra Richardson
Core member
Professor of law at the Dickson Poon School of Law, KCL. Genevra has expertise in mental health law and policy. She will conduct research within workstream 2 and contribute widely across the research network.
Sridhar Venkatapuram
Core member
Lecturer in global health and philosophy, Department of Social Science, Health and Medicine, KCL. Sridhar has expertise in global health and policy and the capabilities approach. He will conduct research within workstream 2.
Ursula Read
Core member
Research associate, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, KCL. Ursula has expertise in ethnography, and social and cultural aspects of mental health. She has conducted long-term fieldwork in Ghana, focusing particularly on persons with severe mental illness and their families, the use of traditional and faith healers, and the expansion of rights-based approaches to mental health care. She conducts research within workstream 2.
Rita Giacaman
Core member
Professor at the Institute for Community and Public Health at Birzeit University, Palestine. Rita has expertise in psycho-social/mental health system building in war-like conditions, social epidemiology and mixed-methods studies on mental health, and disability rights. She will oversee the research conducted by workstream 2 in Palestine.
Emma Wynne Bannister
Core member
PhD candidate at the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at King’s College London. She has a background in medicine and global health. Her main research interests are mental health, philosophy and social justice. She is supervised by Dr Sridhar Venkatapuram and Dr Hanna Kienzler and her project investigates the capability to live in the community as an equal with a particular focus on persons with severe mental illnesses or cognitive disabilities.
Suzan Mitwalli
Core member
Academic researcher at the Institute of Community and Public Health- Birzeit University and assistant coordinator of the Master’s in Public Health program. Her main research interest is mental health, and she has worked for many years on intervention research with the Community Based Rehabilitation organization (CBR). She has also been involved in several research projects at the Institute including women’s health, population health, child health, and occupational health using quantitative and qualitative methods.
Yoke Rabaia
Core member
Academic researcher at the Institute of Community and Public Health – Birzeit University. Her main field is psychosocial health of populations in contexts of military occupation and human insecurity, with a specific interest in community-based interventions. Besides her work in Palestine, she has also conducted qualitative field research with local researchers in Benghazi, Libya, and Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya. She strongly believes that participatory action research is crucial in order to understand and work towards better social conditions for people who are stigmatized or looked down upon by others in society.
Annabella Osei-Tutu, Ph.D.
Core member
Senior Lecturer at the Department of Psychology, University of Ghana. Her research focuses on mental health in Ghana, examining topics related to engagement with religious healers and lay helpers, explanatory models, cultural adaptation of psychosocial interventions, and assessment of competence of mental health care providers.
Lionel Sakyi
Core member
Ghana PhD student at the Centre for Migration Studies, University of Ghana. Lionel’s research interests include mental health and community-based interventions; rights-based approaches and policy responses to mental health in Ghana as well as migration and mental health. He works with Dr Ursula Read in on Workstream 2.
Network
Workstream 2 supervisory network. Click to enlarge.