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Curriculum Documents

Community Mental Health Officer 

 

Download the CMHO curriculum document

The Community Mental Health Officer (CMHO) is a specialist Community Health Officer (CHO).

In Ghana, Community Health Officers live and work in rural areas at community level. They work in a system called CHPS (pronounced ‘chips’ with a silent ‘i’) – Community Based Health Planning and Services. This is important as CHPS is a successful system of community care. In CHPS, Community Health Officers and community members are actively engaged as partners in the delivery of primary health care and family planning services. The goal of CHPS is to mobilize community residents and resources to increase coverage, improve responsiveness and deliver more equitable and cost-effective health care to Ghana's rural residents

 

The CMHOs will assist the Medical Assistants in Psychiatry. Each district (around 170) will have one Medical Assistant Psychiatry working with around 3 CMHOs. The CMHOs will be ‘the foot soldiers’ of the MAP.

 

Key duties will be to:

  • Conduct house to house visits to detect cases of mental disorder
  • Provide psychosocial support, such as family support and education, informal counselling and  
  •    rehabilitation
  • Monitoring and supervision of patient’s adherence to treatment (case management)
  • Refer cases to MAP and other appropriate health professionals
  • Produce reliable data on mental disorders at the community level
  • Organize mental health promotion activities at the community level
  • Ensure community participation to promote mental health
  • Develop effective professional relationships with clients and their families

 

Details of the programme

  • Entry to training for CMHOs is for Community Health Officers with at least 3 years full time practice.
  • The first intake of CMHOs was in October 2010 with 80 students starting at KRHTS (Kintampo Rural Health Training School).
  • The training lasts 1 academic year.
  • CMHOs will be placed in rural communities once qualified (at sud-district level).
  • CMHOs will deal with the same conditions as MAP. This will be mainly schizophrenia, mania, severe depression, alcoholism and epilepsy. In later years when the workforce is established other conditions will be added, including the treatment drug addiction and children.
  • CMHOs will be supervised by MAPs. 
  • Support for practicing CMHOs will be provided from the UK (mainly HPFT) for many years after they start their work.