New York Times Reports on Iraq’s Program to Rebuild its Mental Health Care System: Department of Health and Human Services Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services (HHS/SAMHSA) Supports Iraq’s Mental Health Care Program by Hosting Mental Health Professionals in the United States.

January 31, 2010 - The New York Times reported today that the Government of Iraq has embarked on an ambitious program to rebuild its mental health care system.  HHS/SAMHSA has been assisting the Government of Iraq in its efforts by hosting teams of mental health providers in the United States.  For the past five years, in large part due to a better understanding of the needs of Iraqi refugees and immigrants, SAMHSA has helped Iraq rebuild its capacity for providing mental health services through an exchange of mental- health experts via its Iraq-SAMHSA Initiative on Trauma and Behavioral Health Services.  As mentioned in the NY Times article, SAMHSA hosted six teams of mental health professionals from Basra Iraq in the Fall of 2008 who spent approximately one month at facilities in the United States.  Iraqi teams reported that they learned the following:

• A systematic approach to addressing trauma as a mental health problem
• The importance of multidisciplinary teams
• Diverse psychotherapy options
• Significance of domestic violence to understanding and addressing trauma
• Management of trauma associated with substance abuse

In return, U.S. providers learned from the Basra team that there is much community, family and peer support in Iraq that can be a foundation for addressing trauma in country and improving trauma services here in the U.S.

SAMHSA is currently working on hosting a second cohort of behavioral health providers under the lraq-SAMHSA Initiative on Trauma and Behavioral Health Services in 2010.

For more information:

• Iraq Mends a System to Treat Trauma:

  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/world/middleeast/31iraqcare.html

  (The New York Times)

Last revised: March 02, 2010