The Scotland Malawi Mental Health Education Project (SMMHEP)

The Scotland Malawi Mental Health Education Project (SMMHEP) provides,sustainable support for undergraduate and postgraduate psychiatric teaching,and training in Malawi. The project has enjoyed close links with individuals and institutions in Malawi since 2006 and became a registered Scottish charity in 2008. More than fifty volunteer psychiatrists have provided mental health teaching for approximately seventy medical students annually in the College of Medicine . In 2010 COM working with SMMHEP established the four-year MMed (Psychiatry) Course and the first three postgraduate trainees were enrolled in 2011. Trainees will be able to take up career psychiatry posts in Malawi. ,SMMHEP has organised the highly successful annual Malawi Mental Health Conference attracting delegates and speakers from Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, S Africa and other African countries, as a forum to discuss mental health training, practice and research relevant to southern Africa. ,In 2013 SMMHEP undertook a District Mental Health Improvement Project to develop training packages for mental health workers at the district level in line with the WHO mh-GAP programme. ,SMMHEP is developing an e-learning base for postgraduate and undergraduate mental health courses at the College of Medicine. A structured modular postgraduate course (MMed psychiatry) and undergraduate psychiatry course (MBBS) will become available on an e-learning platform as a sustainable resource for Malawian mental health specialists. SMMHEP is publishing The Malawi Handbook on Mental Health, written by Malawian authors and edited by Dr Stewart.