GCMHP Starts a Course Titled ‘Enhancing Community Mental Health Skills for Medical who Work with Inmates’

Gaza Community Mental Health Programme started a course on community mental health skills. 25 doctors and nurses participated in the opening session which was also attended by Dr. Ziad Awad, Head of the Academic Programmes Unit at GCMHP, and Colonel Dr. Riad Abu Shammala, Assistant Director of Clinical Affairs at Medical Centres for Inmates, and Colonel Ihab AlDali, Director of Doctors’ Affairs, and Lieutenant Mohammed AlJmasi, Director of the Medical Centres and Major Mahmoud Abu Riala, Director of the Clinics Unit at the centres for reform and rehabilitation. This took place at Cedar Meeting Hall in Gaza.

At the beginning of the course, Dr. Awad welcomed the participants and thanked them for their commitment. Dr. Abu Shammala, in turn, thanked the programme for responding to the invitation of the Medical Services to lead this course which aims to equip the health workers with community mental health skills. This would help the medical teams deal with the inmates of the reform and rehabilitation centres.

The course will take place over eight months, once a week, and it will tackle a number of issues such as: Mental Health and Human Rights, Psychological First Aid for Adults, Stress Management and Selfcare, Legal Rights of inmates at Rehabilitation Centres, Gender Based Violence, Common Medications in Psychiatry.

Dr. Awad conducted the first lecture on Mental Health and Human Rights which viewed the definitions of mental health, mental health disorders, the difference between mental health and mental disorders, and the relationship between mental health and human rights.

Gaza Community Mental Health Programme

Public Relation and Media Unit