Read the report (accessible to screen readers)

This paper considers what humanitarian and development organisations need to do to safeguard the mental health of everyone who comes into contact with them, including project participants and staff. It is aimed at international development and humanitarian workers who are involved in safeguarding, mental health or disability inclusion, who would like to think more about how our approach and our practice can encompass the overlap between these fields.

We suggest steps that organisations can take to help ensure that people with mental health conditions/psychosocial disabilities are not harmed as a result of the organisation’s actions or failure to act. We consider how organisations can avoid causing mental distress and can uphold the mental wellbeing of all programme participants and staff. We look at how our organisational safeguarding processes – particularly reporting and investigations – may be experienced by people who have mental health conditions, and how these processes might affect the mental health of everyone involved. The areas we cover are programming and operations, staff care and management, and safeguarding mechanisms.

The paper has been developed by the Inclusive Safeguarding Task Group of the International Disability and Development Consortium, in consultation with mental health advocates, representatives of mental health-focused organisations and NGOs implementing mental health programming in Nairobi in December 2022. These meetings were convened by Basic Needs Basic Rights Kenya,  Edwin Mburu of Mentally Unsilenced and CBM Global Disability Inclusion. The participants included, amongst others, people with direct experience of living with mental health conditions.