Faculty to Faculty Mentoring Grants
Mentee: Martine Solages, MD
Mentor: Paramjit Joshi, MD, Division Chief, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Objectives:
- To conduct a preliminary mental health needs assessment for adolescents in Grenada
- To identify recourse gaps and other barriers to mental health care delivery
Project Description:
Despite being leading causes of disability around the world, mental health and neurological disorders do not receive the same attention as communicable and infectious diseases. There is a global shortage of mental health providers and facilities especially in low resource areas where the number of providers per population is already insufficient to ensure accessibility of care. Globally, most mental health patients do not receive treatment and those that do are mostly adults, not children. There is a large unmet need for mental health services for children in low resource environments. Current data suggests that 15-18% of English-speaking adolescents in the Caribbean have considered suicide and even greater numbers have had prolonged depression.
This unmet need is exactly what Dr. Martine Solages proposed to assess and address with Dr. Paramjit Joshi, her faculty mentor, on their GHI funded pilot project, “An Empty Sack Cannot Stand Up”: Focus on Child and Adolescent Mental Wellness in Grenada.” The project aimed to assess the mental health needs of adolescents in Grenada and identify resource gaps and other barriers to mental healthcare accessibility and availability.
Drs. Solages and Joshi utilized the existing framework of the Children’s Hospital Organization Relief and Educational Services (CHORES) Mental Health Initiative which has provided subspeciality care to children in Grenada twice a year for the last 25 years. CHORES held a workshop, led by Dr. Solages, at the Ministry of Education for mental health providers at which 10 key concerns were identified for the current system of mental health care availability and accessibility. Dr. Solages and Joshi aimed to extend this workshop’s findings via formalized data collection through focus groups and surveys.
Through these surveys, the project aimed to acquire input from several relevant community organizations and actors including the Ministries of Health, Education and Human Resource Development, Youth Empowerment and Sports, Social Development and Housing, Community Development, Mt. Gay Psychiatric Hospital, St. George’s University, and CHORES Grenada. This pilot award will provide critical data for the development of new clinical programs and mental health interventions in Grenada.
