Outreach Program – Community Mental Health

From 2003 to 2005 Cittadinanza supported, in Chennai district, the development of community based mental health services, aiming at promoting at local (family/community) level the identification of mentally ill persons and the provision of appropriate initial treatment.

The treatment of patients within the family unit, in fact, avoids the separation of the patient from his family during the therapeutical phase, thus preventing permanent disability, reducing the lenght of hospitalization and promoting the patient’s social reintegration.

The project was developed in cooperation with SCARF (Schizophrenia Research Foundation), an Indian NGO founded in 1984, which has since implemented several successful ‘community mental health’ projects in rural and suburban areas of Tamil Nadu region.