The Kintampo Project Video Series: Part 3 - The Ghanaian perspective and the future for our work...

UK Kintampo Project members and guests were delighted to welcome Dr E T Adjase, the Ghana Lead for the Project, to the launch of our charity, the Kintampo Trust in January.

In the third and final part of this video series, we listen as Dr Adjase describes the big picture about mental health in Ghana, and how the Kintampo Project fits in to the wider scheme of healthcare development:

Click to read more ...

The Kintampo Project Video Series: Part 2, what we're doing

Following on from yesterday's post about the launch of our new charity, The Kintampo Trust, we'd like to share some footage of our project members talking about what we're doing to improve mental health in Ghana, and our achievements so far...

Click to read more ...

The Kintampo Project Video Series: Part 1, Our new charity

On 17 Jan, the UK Kintampo Project members hosted a special event to celebrate the launch of our new UK-registered charity, The Kintampo Trust, which has been created specially to raise funds for our work in Ghana.

The Kintampo Trust will help us focus our fundraising efforts and really accelerate the progress we are making in Ghana at what is a crucial phase of our Project.

Click to read more ...

Successful bid to undertake major mental health survey in Ghana

The Kintampo Project has been successful in it's application to help Ghana survey the whole of its mental health system using the international standard WHO-AIMS (World Health Organisation Assessment Instrument for Mental Health Systems).  The results will be used for planning and policymaking especially for;  

(a) Renewal of Ghana Ministry of Health Mental Health Programme of Work 2103-201

(b) Implementation of the forthcoming new Ghana Mental Health Act 

(c) Monitoring and evaluation for The Kintampo Project Outcomes

The Kintampo Project is very proud to have been chosen by Ghana to help this very important work rolling out new mental health services to rural communities and people in need.  Read more about what we're doing in Ghana

Kintampo Project 2006-2011 Review Distributed

December 2011 - our Project Review is being distributed widely across Ghana and the UK. The review was produced entirely by volunteers and is being sent out through internal main systems, low cost postage and email. Read updates on our milestones and progress here.

Educator development – the heart of The Kintampo Project

Small group session at the workshop‘The way you made us think through the issues was just wonderful. Thank you so much’  Direct quote from Participant Social Worker

The Kintampo Project third national educator (preceptor) workshop was held in September 2011 (12^th -16^th) to build on two highly successful and popular workshops held in 2010 and 2009. On this occasion the meeting was attended by 66 educators from all 10 regions of Ghana and for the first time, the preceptor group included 12 Social Workers, 1 Prison Officer, 1 Traditional Priest, 2 MAP and 6 CMHO students as future educators, as well as Mental Health Nurses who had already attended the previous 2 workshops. The multi professional group provided fertile ground for fostering communication and joint working, and major progress was made towards developing the ‘hub-and-spoke’ model in all 10 regions. 

We ensure long term sustainability of our work through developing high quality mental health educators in Ghana. See our approach to education ...

Suzie's blog

Dr Suzie EastonSuzie Easton is a UK Psychiatry Specialist Registrar currently undertaking a 3 month placement at Pantang Hospital in Ghana, via Challenges Worldwide.  You can read about Suzie's work for mentally ill people in Ghana at 

http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/members/overseasblogs/ghana.aspx

UK Educators leave for Ghana

Teaching of teachers is key for long term sustainability so May 2011 saw two UK NHS Clinician Educator teams visit Ghana to support developing Ghanaian Preceptors.

The next team; Mr Paul Harvey, Advanced Mental health Practitioner, Dr Moira Ledger, Consultant Psychiatrist and Mr Sam Afari Community Practitioner will focus on new geographic areas in this ambitious but highly successful whole country mental health workforce scale up.

Click to read more ...

Student licensure exams - August 2011

August 2011 saw the first 72 students take their licensure exams to become Community Mental Health Officers across Ghana's 10 Regions.  The students were examined by an experienced in-country team supported by Kintampo Project external examiner, Dr Ann Henry. You can read about the exam methods in the MAP curriculum document and the CMHO curriculum document. 

Click to read more ...

Koncert Success!

Thanks to all who came along to the first Koncert 4 Kintampo - a musical extravaganza and fundraising event rolled into one. The Koncert was a fantastic opportunity to raise awareness about the big issues affecting mental health services in Ghana, and to gain more local support in Hampshire - the home of the UK-half of the Project.

Moira Ledger, UK fundraising lead, who organised the event, said:

"The Koncert was the culmination of a lot of hard work by a large number of people but after grabbing the time to have a dance in the aisles myself and thoroughly letting my hair down

Click to read more ...

Kintampo Rural Health Training School to Become a Universtiy

Panoramic view showing buidlings of The College of HealthThe Kintampo Rural Health Training School has become The College of Health, Kintampo and later this year the College is set to affiliate to Kwame and Nkrumah University of Science and Technology after which it will be The University College of Health, Kintampo. The 1500 student training school established over 30 years ago is rapidly expanding both in student numbers and stature.

The College of Health produces mid level Health Workers for Ghana, particularly those who will reach the most under-served areas. This is excellent news for The Kintampo Project and the people of Ghana.

72 New Graduates Start Work

The first 72 graduates from the groundbreaking new programmes developed by the Kintampo Project have now started work in Ghana. The 72 Community Mental Health Officers will be providing services in places where none previously existed. They have trained for one year and will be bringing desperately needed mental health services to rural and under-served communities across the country. This starts major improvements for mental health in Ghana. The program will produce 100 new Community Mental Health Officers every year.

Find out more about Community Mental Health Officers

Meeting with Ghanaian Minister of Health

The Honorable Minister of Health recieving a copy of The Kintampo Project ReviewThe Honorable Yieleh Chireh, Minister of Health for Ghana broke from a busy schedule for an update briefing on the MAP/CMHO programmes by senior team members of The Kintampo Project. The Minister was impressed and very happy with the work of the Project which continues until 2018. 

Ghana half marathon run raises over £1200

At the finishing lineMark Roberts, the UK Kintampo Project lead competed in the Accra International Half Marathon on 25th September 2011.  Mark says .....  a very big thank you to all who supported mental health in Ghana by sponsoring me for the half marathon I crazily ran last week in Africa…. and thank you too to all who wished me luck and followed what I’ve been doing, your support meant a lot.

The race was about the most difficult thing I’ve ever done, I found it very very hard, really gruelling.

We started around 7am and by the time I finished it was so so hot. The course was very scenic, on roads and tracks along West African coastline with palm trees, beaches and waves crashing in on the sand.  At times we ran through small towns

Click to read more ...

Poster competition award

September 2011 - The Kintampo Project was proud to win 3rd place in the Tropical Health Education Trust Annual conference poster competition.

The eye-catching poster was designed by Mr Tom Westbury, project communications manager.

Kintampo Project chosen as Southern Health Charity of Choice

Dr Rosie Lusznat addressed the Star Wards ceremony

At the prestigious Southern Health Star Awards ceremony this year The Kintampo Project was privileged to be the charity of choice.  Staff raised over £1000 all of which will go towards improving mental health services for 1000’s of seriously mentally ill people across Ghana.  On behalf of Ghana, The Kintampo Project says a big MEDA WASE PAA (thank you very much ! in Twi).

Strengthening the bond

Dr Adjase presented Katrina Percy with a rare Kente cloth to celebrate the relationship between the UK and Ghanaian health services, through the Kintampo Project

At its heart, the Kintampo Project is a link between a UK NHS Trust and the Kintampo Rural Health Training School in Ghana. Today that link was strengthened when Dr ET Adjase, the lead for the Kintampo Project in Ghana, met with Katrina Percy, the Chief Executive of Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust.

Click to read more ...

Introducing The Kintampo Trust, our new charity

Logo of The Kintampo TrustWe're excited to announce that we have now become part of a newly-founded independent charity - The Kintampo Trust.

With the help of Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust, our UK partner, we have set up this charity to support the Kintampo Project and its aims. 

The Trust will allow us to really focus our fundraising on Africa (and Ghana in particular), whilst still supporting the development of NHS staff involved.

Click to read more ...

UK report on recent visit to Ghana

Left to right: Emmanuel Okyere (Programme Lead, CMHO), Mark Roberts (Project Lead - UK), Peter Adams (Resident Lecturer, CMHO & MAP), Emmanuel Ofori (Programme Lead, MAP)

Three UK Project members have just returned from a week in Ghana. For two of us, it was our first time in this incredible country.

The visit allowed us to meet with many people, including students on our programmes, tutors, programme leads and prominent psychiatrists in Ghana. It was invaluable as it helped us understand how the Project is progressing; we were able to collect useful feedback and we saw first hand some of the challenges facing mental health provision in Ghana.

Click to read more ...

Kintampo Project recruits eight new members

We are very pleased to introduce everyone to our latest team members who joined The Kintampo Project at the end of December 2010. 

The new volunteers will help develop the field sites throughout Ghana, where the students will visit on placements, during their training.

Click below to read more about the new volunteers and find out how you can join them.

Congratulations to the new volunteers and welcome aboard! 

Click to read more ...