Home Our Approach

Our Approach

1

Research and Material Development
2

Building capacity and promote evidence based programming models
3

Influence policy and practice
4

Build partnerships

Psychosocial Support

Psychosocial support (PSS) is love, care and protection. It is support for the emotional and social aspects of a child’s life so that they can live with hope and dignity.

REPSSI Psychosocial integration approach provides:

  • Social support service sectors and programs that are focused on livelihoods improvement, youth empowerment and poverty reduction.
  • Empowering families to become socio-economically independent to mitigate risks of relapse among family members with mental illness and chronic depression;
  • Enhancing capacity of families to meet their needs and enabling women and young girls to enjoy their reproductive health rights.
  • Advocacy and policy influencing collaboration and support to regional bodies as REPSSI
  • Providing information, knowledge on Mental Health Psychosocial Support (MHPS) in the African continent
  • Through our training sister company, African Psychosocial Institute (APSSI) we provide academic research and development of psychosocial knowledge and scholarly materials that are relevant for the African continent.

By 2020 REPSSI will provide technical assistance and lead advocacy for sustained PSS mainstreaming into programmes and services for girls, boys, youth, families and communities in East and Southern Africa so that they live with hope, dignity and happiness.

The Programming Principles we use:

  • Rights based approach
  • Family and household centred approach
  • Protection from all forms of violence and abuse
  • Social and community integration
  • A sustainable developmental perspective
  • Gender sensitivity and inclusivity

REPSSI defines psychosocial support  as:

  • Psychosocial support is a continuum of love, care and protection that enhances the cognitive, emotional and spiritual wellbeing of a person and strengthens their social and cultural connectedness. Effective psychosocial support enhances individual, family and community competencies and positively influences both the individual and the social environment in which people live.
  • Psychosocial support builds resilience in girls, boys, youth, their families and communities, enhancing social, health, HIV and educational outcomes
  • Psychosocial represents the relationship between the psychological and social aspects of our lives, with each continually influencing and interacting with the other.

Approaches

1
Research and Material Development

REPSSI has over the years attained a global reputation for its high quality, context specific psychosocial support materials. The child wellbeing series has been replicated and adapted widely across the continent and beyond. What we do:

  • Refine mental health and psychosocial support research and knowledge actors
  • We provide research for practice purposes and build evidence that shows the efficacy of our programmes interventions. Research ideas are collaboratively developed and implemented in collaboration with APSSI, our training sister company.
  • We develop materials that provide PSS programme implementation guidance to countries and sector actors
2
Building Capacity and promote evidence based programming models

REPSSI identifies capacity needs among state and non-state actors and jointly develops capacity building programs in Mental Health Psychosocial Support (MHPSS).  We see this as one way of increasing the levels of policy and programmatic awareness in the field of MHPSS in the region and continent.

How we do it:

  • We work with civil society to increase their capacity in the area of Mental Health Psychosocial Support.
  • We use evidence based models e.g INSPIRE Violence Prevention to deliver our interventions and avoid replicating what already exists. Where we find models that are well aligned to our thematic areas, we adapt them for use in specific contexts.
3
Influence policy and practice

REPSSI is renowned for its high level national and regional policy advocacy work and policy influencing approach.

  • We work with regional bodies on issues of HIV/AIDS, psychosocial support and influence policy and advocacy
  • REPSSI supports national agencies on the integration of Mental Health Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) into violence prevention, disaster risk reduction sectors’ plans.
4
Build partnerships

For many years REPSSI has delivered its services through other partners and national governments.

  • We deliver services through local partners as well as direct service delivery.
  • We provide technical assistance through local partners to acquire competencies in psychosocial programming.
  • We work with local partners through consortiums and/or sub-granting arrangements.
  • We provide technical assistance to national governments and NGOS.
View our partners