ABOUT US

Project Co-Leads: Dr Fiona Samuels & Professor Hoang-Minh Dang

How can we build capacity in mental health care systems in Vietnam and Cambodia to co-develop and implement a feasible, acceptable, beneficial and sustainable youth-targeted mental health intervention?

Rising rates of mental illness are an urgent global health problem. As mental health problems often start in youth intervening early is crucial in mitigating long-term personal and economic cost. In countries such as Vietnam and Cambodia, there is appetite for delivering early mental health interventions but there are also system-level limitations, especially outside major cities, that constrain delivery and accessibility.

The overall objective of M-BRIGHT is to address these structural barriers by building capacity and strengthening systems that underlie the provision of youth-targeted mental health services in Cambodia and Vietnam. Our specific aims are to: a) train potential service providers across different sectors (health, education, social) on mental health literacy and then co-design and co-adapt with them and youth an intervention for youth (aged ~14-19) that we developed and pilot-tested in previous projects; b) measure the feasibility, acceptability and potential effects of these interventions in promoting good mental health; and c) co-design referral pathways for the scale-up of these interventions.