In September 2025, the UK-PHRST Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) team supported a workshop to help strengthen outbreak preparedness and mental health response capacities in Uganda. Co-organised with Uganda’s Ministry of Health, Makarere University and Transcultural Psychosocial Organization TPO Uganda, the workshop brought together participants from the Ugandan Ministry of Health and outbreak response co-ordinators from the Ugandan Incident Management System.

Uganda’s Ministry of Health and Incident Management Team requested this national workshop following the success of the joint UK-PHRST and Ugandan partners research project in Bundibugyo: "Making mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) part of outbreak response planning in Uganda".

As part of this collaborative project, the researchers co-developed a package of priority MHPSS measures that could be built into Uganda’s outbreak preparedness and response plans. These measures were tested in Uganda’s Bundibugyo district, where they proved effective, practical and well-received by communities and outbreak responders and showed strong potential to be scaled up to a nation-wide plan to guide other districts.

Workshop aim

Across five days, the workshop aimed to advance MHPSS capacity in Uganda through four connected objectives:

  • Share lessons learned from the joint research project with key stakeholders, ensuring that evidence-based approaches informed discussions and planning
  • Create sustainable expertise in Ugandan public health workers by developing their skills and contribute to the nationwide scale up of MHPSS interventions in the long term
  • Equip outbreak response teams with MHPSS skills to better support both their own mental wellbeing as well as that of affected communities during health emergencies
  • Support the development of a national MHPSS plan to integrate into the Ugandan Incident Management System, ensuring that mental health support becomes a routine component of emergency response

Participants included emergency response coordinators involved in the current mpox outbreak response in Uganda, bringing the opportunity to engage a wide range of partners, national stakeholders and non-governmental organisations.

Workshop highlights

On the first day of the workshop, UK-PHRST researchers shared the results and lessons learned from the joint MHPSS research project, advocating for nationwide adoption of mental health interventions, whilst ensuring that evidence-based approaches informed all discussions and planning during the workshop.

During the second and third days, UK-PHRST delivered a tabletop exercise to support the training of the national outbreak response team. The exercise covered the key MHPSS skills that were developed and refined as part of the joint MHPSS research project. This included psychosocial and stress management skills to promote mental health and wellbeing in both response workers and community members during outbreaks. It also included practical knowledge and skills required for implementing MHPSS strategies, such as coordination, gap analysis, priority MHPSS considerations, special considerations for different groups of people, and the role of MHPSS Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE) during outbreak response.     

In the final two days, the Ministry of Health’s Mental Health Unit led sessions to draft a framework national MHPSS plan with input from all stakeholders and technical support from UK-PHRST.

Dr. Kenneth Kalani, a psychiatrist and Senior Medical Officer at the Mental Health Division of the Ministry of Health, said: “I think out of this, we need to forge a conversation again and a dialogue and see how we use the existing resources we have to redistribute the mental health services and ensure that even districts that are not within the refugee hosting situation can benefit.”

Dr Biksegn Yirdaw, UK-PHRST MHPSS team member and Assistant Professor at LSHTM said: “Building on findings from our previous research with Ugandan partners, we are delighted to help co-develop a national Mental Health and Psychosocial Support plan for scaling up mental health support during outbreaks in Uganda.”