Integrating mental health into public health: The community mental health development project in India

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and its public health institutes are collaborating with Asia Australia Mental Health on an innovative community mental health development project designed to enhance initiatives under the District Mental Health Program and increase accessibility of essential community mental health services. The project is an exciting opportunity to create positive change in meeting the challenges of community mental health care in India. It recognizes that no one single model of care can be applied to all the community in the country and that locally appropriate models working in close partnership with local communities is required. Targeted and skill-based training programs are useful to build local leadership capacity in implementing quality and culturally appropriate community mental health services.