Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) Committee

The Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) Committee is dedicated to expanding and integrating practices that promote the emotional wellbeing of refugee and forcibly displaced individuals, families, and communities, as well as the healthcare providers who serve them. The committee serves as a resource for Society members by highlighting best and promising practices, sharing relevant materials, and promoting inclusive frameworks that improve access to mental health support. They work to build capacity and provide training on evidence-based interventions and strategies that strengthen both forcibly displaced community mental health and provider wellbeing.

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Mental Health Committee

About the Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) Committee

Learn about our mission, our vision and download the committee charter. Resources and our leadership and members are below.

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Mission Statement

The mission of the MHPSS Committee is to expand and integrate interventions, practices, and activities that promote the mental health and emotional wellbeing of both forcibly displaced individuals, families, and communities and the healthcare providers who serve them, within the Society of Refugee Healthcare Providers and the broader refugee health provider discipline.

Committee Vision

The MHPSS Committee aims to serve as a resource for its members, highlight best and promising practices, share relevant materials, and promote inclusive frameworks that improve access to mental health support for forcibly displaced communities and strengthen the wellbeing of the providers who serve them.

Committee Charter

Learn more about our objectives.

Download the Committee Charter

Goals & Responsibilities

The MHPSS Committee will:

  • Ensure community voices, including those of providers with lived experience, are included in all activities.
  • Promote the inclusion of MHPSS topics in the annual Society conference, including participation in planning and abstract review, with attention to both client care and provider wellbeing, resilience, and sustainability.
  • Share MHPSS resources, such as research, best practices, and educational materials, with committee members and the society at large, including resources on provider self-care, burnout prevention, and vicarious trauma management.
  • Build capacity and provide training opportunities for Society members and forcibly displaced communities on both evidence-based interventions and strategies to support provider mental health and prevent compassion fatigue.
  • Develop a framework for MHPSS work in refugee, asylum, and integration settings that addresses both client and provider wellbeing, complementing the existing IASC framework for emergency humanitarian settings.
  • Foster peer support networks and create spaces for providers to share experiences, challenges, and strategies for strengthening practice and maintaining their own mental health and wellbeing while working with displaced populations.

Leadership & Members

Committee Chairs

Mary Bunn, PhD, LCSW
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry
Director and Principal Investigator, The Flourish Lab
Director, Global Mental Health Research and Training Program, Center for Global Health
University of Illinois at Chicago

Beth Farmer, LCSW
Senior Director – Safety, Health & Education Technical Unit
Resettlement, Asylum and Integration
International Rescue Committee