2. Introduction
BasicNeeds is an international development
organisation, which works to bring about lasting
change in the lives of people affected by mental
illness and epilepsy. The organisation has built an
innovative approach that tackles peoples’ poverty,
as well as their illness. By ensuring that their basic
needs are met and their basic rights are respected.
Established in 1999 by Chris Underhill with
funding from Andrews Charitable Trust and the
Joel Joffe Charitable Trust, BasicNeeds has
pioneered a way of working, which places people
with mental disorders at the heart of all that it does.

3. Interventions areas of BasicNeeds
BN working in 5 continents of the world
 Europe
 Africa
 Asia
 Latin America
 Australia

4. Model of BasicNeeds in Pakistan
The model is formed of 5 separate but interlinked
modules; these are:
 Capacity building
 Community mental health
 Sustainable livelihoods
 Research
 Management and administration

5. Cross cutting themes
 Working in partnership
 Animation
 Gender development
 Participatory techniques
 Flexibility

6. Getting started
 Feasibility
 Identifying partners
 Programme planning
 Identifying donors and securing funding
 Assembling the team

7. Capacity building

8. Forums for capacity building
 Filed consultation
 Other consultations
 Self- help group

9.  Field consultation
 A field consultation is typically the starting point of
building capacity and one of the founding programme
activities.
 This activity brings together people with mental
disorders, their carers and families, and partner
organisations.
 Other consultations
 The field consultation is the first of many consultations
that continue to be held throughout the lifetime of the
programme.

10.  Self- help group
 Self-help groups play multiple-roles and are
established for a range of purposes.
 For example, carers and people with mental disorders
may come together to form, or join, a group to
encourage better integration

11. Tools for capacity building
 Animation
 Research
 Awareness- raising and sensitization
 Games and songs
 Trainings

12.  Animation
 Animation is that stimulus to the mental, physical,
and emotional life of people in a given area.
 which moves them to undertake a wider range of
experiences through which they find a higher degree
of self-realisation, self-expression, and awareness of
belonging to a community.
 Research
 Individuals’ capacities are also built through the
process of generating data and research.
 Life stories are a primary data source used for analysis
in research.

13.  Awareness-raising and sensitisation
 Awareness-raising and sensitisation campaigns are
used widely to challenge pre conceptions, change
attitudes and share information about mental
disorders.
 A variety of methods are used in awareness including
street, theatre
personal counselling
sensitisation workshops
consultations
media campaigns

14.  Games and songs
 Awareness-raising Games and songs, also known as
energisers.
 are introduced in many group activities within a
programme.
 They are a means of helping a group of people,
possibly strangers, to get to know each other and
bond.

15.  Trainings
 The range and breadth of training that is carried out
within a programme is considerable.
 Therefore, whilst acknowledging that training is a key
component of capacity building

16. Community mental health

17. How does it happen?
 Build partnership
 Community mental health services
 Identification
 Follow up support

18.  Build partnership
 Correct diagnosis and treatment is an important step
towards recovery for a person with a mental disorder.
 Often people with mental disorders, are also living in
poverty will not have had access to the mental health
services that they require.
 Community mental health services
 In some cases, clinics may be held at existing health
facilities,
 such as hospitals or health centres and are wholly
provided

19.  Identification
 Once regular community mental health services are
established,
 it is important that people with mental disorders
attend them.
 However, a person with a mental disorder may be less
visible in their community,
 perhaps physically hidden or not welcomed at
community events because of their illness and the
stigma that so often surrounds it.

20.  Follow up visits
 Community psychiatric nurses continue to support
community volunteers to monitor the people under
treatment,
 provide support to carers and appropriately advise and
report on the progress of each of the people

21. Sustainable livelihoods

22. Assessment of livelihood opportunities
 Home visits
 Making link with development organizations
 Income generating and productive activities
 Self help group
 New business
 Access to resources
 Returning to education
 Therapy and income generation entering into productive
work
 New skills

23.  Home visits
 Home visits facilitate a culture of work and self-
sufficiency amongst people
 recovering from mental disorders and their families by
providing encouragement and support, guidance and
mentoring and information on opportunities.
 Making link with development organizations
 In pursuing a sustainable livelihood,
 a person recovering from a mental disorder may opt
to return to a previous occupation
 or decide to pursue other options that require
additional skills or capital.

24.  Income generating and productive activities
 There is a real diversity of employment and productive
work that result from this module.
 Individual level, people recovering from mental
disorders have returned to their previous occupations
 Developed new skills, started businesses and entered
into new professions and livelihoods.

25.  Self help group
 The self-help groups have been specialising in
 goat and chicken nurture,
 gardening of vegetables,
 farming of rice, maize, pineapples, beans and
sesame productions.
 New business
 Establish new business

26.  Access to resources
 Returning to education
 Come back to education
 Therapy and income generation entering into
productive work
 New skills

27. Research

28. Research methods
 Participatory action research
 Outcome studies
 Policy studies
 Baseline study
 Primary data
 Life stories
 Individual files
 Clinical files
 Process documents uses of evidence
 Influencing policy and advocacy
 Evidencing efficacy and challenges
 Knowledge base

29.  Participatory action research
 Participatory action research forms a significant part
of BasicNeeds’ research work and is integral to a
programme.
 The process involves cycles of data collection, analysis,
feedback and reinterpretation with the outputs
 used to assess need and the effectiveness of
interventions

30.  Outcome studies
 Outcome studies build on the data generated through
participatory action research
 use it to evaluate the efficacy of the model outcomes.
 The purpose of this type of evaluative research is to
evidence how effective the interventions of the model
are in bringing about real change in the lives of people
with mental disorders

31.  Policy studies
 Policy studies involve specific, one-off pieces of
research
 that focus on a particular set of issues that
significantly affect intervention quality or model
outcomes.
 Often the reason for commissioning a study will have
resulted from issues highlighted through participatory
action research and the outcome studies.

32.  Baseline study
 A baseline study is a review of the situation of the
programme area specifically looking at the lives of
people with mental disorders and all of those factors
in the external environment that affect them.
 Primary data
 Primary data collection is an on-going process,
 which involves complete documentation of the lives of
people with mental disorders, their carers and
families, via a number of formats.
 Life stories
 Life stories are a way in which the lives and
experiences of people with mental disorders can be
recorded, as told by them.

33.  Individual files
 Every person with a mental disorder who is involved in
the programme will have an individual file.
 Such files are a factual account of the individual,
including information on their background and
history; their medical information
 including type of mental illness,
symptoms and treatment
their family situation.

34.  Clinical files
 As with individual files,
 clinical files are kept for every person with a mental
disorder participating in the programme
 Process documents uses of evidence
 All field consultations and focus groups involving
people within the programme are recorded via process
documents.

35.  Influencing policy and advocacy
 The research methods described above generate a
body of evidence that is used for many purposes.
 Evidencing efficacy and challenges
 The knowledge gained from the research discussed
above contributes to demonstrating the efficacy of
and the challenges faced when implementing the
model for mental health and development.
 Knowledge base
 The evidence generated through this module,
contributes to a significant knowledge base that serves
two main purposes

36. Management and Administration

37.  Fundraising
 Managing and building partnership
 Partner meetings
 Monitoring
 Financial management
 Reporting cycle
 Programme evaluation

38.  Fundraising
 Without funding, putting the model for mental health
and development into practice would not be possible
 Managing and building partnership
 All of the programmes that are currently running are
dependent on partnership work for their success.
Partnerships are formed with a range of organisations
 Partner meetings
 Partner meetings provide a platform for all
organisations involved in the programme to share
information and experiences and learn from each
other.

39.  Monitoring
 All the activities carried out and
 details of the people who benefit from them are
tracked within the programme.
 Activity tracking sheets, statistical tracking sheets
 process tracking sheets are used by BasicNeeds and its
partners to collate this information.
 Financial management
 Setting accurate budgets and monitoring income and
expenditure occurs throughout a programme.

40.  Reporting cycle
 Partner organisations collate the monitoring data on
monthly basis and
 then submit quarterly reports to BasicNeeds
 describing what has occurred in the programme over
the last three months.
 Programme evaluation
 Evaluations are undertaken at two points in the
lifetime of a programme –
 one halfway through and one at the end of a
programme’s funding cycle (normally every three or
four years). Typically,
 the mid-way evaluation is carried out internally and
an external evaluator completes the final evaluation.

41. Training

42.  Community mental health training
 Research training
 Documentation training
 Animation training
 Delivering sustainable livelihoods training
 Management and administration training

43.  Community mental health training
 Building on the capacity of existing primary health
care or community infrastructure,
 the training equips participants with the skills to
undertake and deliver more effective mental health
care.
 Research training
 The research approach adopted by BasicNeeds uses
participatory processes that place the stakeholders at
the heart of generating and analysing the data.
 Within the model, people such as health workers,
community workers or partner organisations may be
involved in carrying out research.

44.  Documentation training
 A strong feature of a programme, is that everything
that takes place is thoroughly documented
 including life stories,
 process documents
 individual and clinical files
 Activity and statistical tracking sheets
 the various reports (quarterly, annual and
partner).

45.  Animation training
 Animation transcends individual modules and is vital
to delivering change, increasing capacity and
empowerment.
 Delivering sustainable livelihoods training
 The sustainable livelihood module is often delivered
in partnership with development and other
organisations or institutions and
 helps individuals to access opportunities and
resources to make a living.

46.  Management and administration training
 The management and administration training
provides partner organisations with relevant project
management skills required to implement the aspects
of the programme they are responsible for.
 Topics such as,
 preparing logical frameworks,
 budgeting, finances
 reporting are offered to partners where there is an
identified need.

47. Training for people with mental
disorders, their carers and families
 Managing illness training
 Employment or productive work training
 Advocacy training

48.  Managing illness training
 To sustain effective treatment, people with mental
disorders, carers and family members need to know
how best to manage their illness.
 Employment or productive work training
 Sustainable livelihoods training enables people
recovering from a mental disorder,
 carers and family members to pursue a path that will
lead to employment or productive work.
 The training is highly specific and can range from
horticulture skills to bicycle maintenance, from
mechanics to business planning.

49.  Advocacy training
 Advocacy training aims to equip people with mental
disorders, their carers and families with the skills and
abilities to demand the services
 they are entitled to and the confidence to speak up for
their rights.

50. Roles
Community workers
 Coordinating and running the activities such as field consultations and
community meetings
 Helping a person with a mental disorder to pursue a course of treatment
 Assisting in the establishment and operation of self-help groups and
cooperatives.
 Supporting and encouraging a new business venture
 Identifying a person with a mental disorder and referring for treatment
 Helping at mental health camps and outreach clinics
 Providing follow-up support, managing side-effects and relapses
 Recording and documenting life stories and maintaining individual files
 Providing the link between the person with a mental disorder and
BasicNeeds/partner organisations

51.  Mental health professionals
 Mental health professionals play a very important role
in
diagnosing,
treating
assisting people with mental disorders in their
recovery.
 Including people like
psychiatrists,
clinical psychologists,
clinical social workers
psychiatric nurses, their primary involvement in
the programme is within the community mental
health module where they carry out a number
of functions and duties.

52.  Animators
 The animator has “a special responsibility to stimulate
people, to think critically, to identify problems, and to
find new solutions

53.  Traditional healers
 The significance of traditional healers in many poor
peoples’ lives
 and the part they play in diagnosing and treating
mental disorders must be given due emphasis.
 Within the programmes, relationships have been
built with healers and in some cases a strong
collaboration has developed between the two
parties.
 Partners

54. Partners
 Effective partnerships help BasicNeeds run effective
programmes. Partners increase the reach of the model,
complement and add value to the work and support its
sustainability. Depending on which aspects of the programme
require partners any of the following organisational groups
 could be approached:
 Community-based organisations
 Development organisations
 Community-based rehabilitation organisations
 Primary and mental health care providers
 Micro-credit organisations
 Training and educational institutions
 Self-help groups
 Government departments

55. The model’s impact
 A better quality of life for poor people with mental
disorders