Responders, representing relevant authorities and humanitarian actors, rely on online communication during and after disasters and emergencies - both as a tool to reach exposed populations, to organize and coordinate responses and to mobilize resources. However, disasters and emergencies also spark more problematic online attention and reactions including the targeting of marginalized populations. 

IFRCs World Disaster Report 2026 featured a contribution from Yasin Duman, Research Specialist and Shona Whitton, Heading the Technical Team both representing the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement MHPSS Hub. The topic of the contribution was Online racism and mental health after disasters. 

This podcast, moderated by Dr. Carmen Valle-Trabadelo, Head of the Communications, Humanitarian Diplomacy and Research Team in the MHPSS Hub, pics up some of the key-examples discussed in the contribution and links them to the broader discussion of the mental health implications, the causalities that generate them and the potential mitigation measures needed to address them.

For further information: 

IFRC World Disaster Report, Contribution, Online racism and mental health after disasters. (page 49) 

New Mexico Department of Justice, Press Release, New Mexico Department of Justice Wins Landmark Verdict Against Meta

In this episode of Heartbeat of Humanity, host Ahlem Cheffi is joined from Damascus by Dr. Faiza Alabdullah, Head of Psychosocial Support, Protection, and Community Services at the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC). Together, they explore how community-based psychosocial support and protection are implemented during emergencies in Syria, why this approach is critical in a protracted crisis and how MHPSS contributes to individual healing, social cohesion, and community protection. The conversation also looks at the recovery phase, including support to returnees and reflects on the role of MHPSS in rebuilding social bonds, strengthening peace and empowering communities.

من الاستجابة الإنسانية إلى التعافي المجتمعي: تجربة الهلال الأحمر العربي السوري في الدعم النفسي الاجتماعي والحماية

في هذه الحلقة، نتعرّف مع الدكتورة فايزة العبدالله من الهلال الأحمر العربي السوري على دور الدعم النفسي الاجتماعي والحماية في السياق السوري، وأهميتهما في حالات الطوارئ والأزمات الممتدة، ودورهما في تعافي الأفراد، وتعزيز التماسك الاجتماعي، والحماية وتمكين المجتمعات، بما يسهم في إعادة بناء الروابط الاجتماعية ودعم مسارات التعافي والسلام على المستوى المجتمعي.

Dans cet épisode de Heartbeat of Humanity, le podcast du Mouvement Croix-Rouge Croissant-Rouge dédié à la santé mentale et au soutien psychosocial (SMSPS), nous explorons le contexte de crises et de conflits au Niger et leurs impacts psychosociaux sur les communautés affectées, y compris les personnes déplacées, migrantes et réfugiées. L’épisode met en lumière l’intégration de la SMSPS dans la réponse humanitaire de la Croix-Rouge nigérienne, la collaboration avec ses partenaires et son rôle de chef de file dans la coordination des acteurs à travers le Groupe de travail technique SMSPS. Animé par Ahlem Cheffi, ce podcast propose un regard à la fois stratégique et ancré dans le terrain, rappelant que la santé mentale et le bien-être psychosocial restent des priorités essentielles en situation d’urgence.

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Crises, migration, and MHPSS: Coordination and the key role of the Niger Red Cross and its partners

In this episode of Heartbeat of Humanity, the podcast of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement dedicated to Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS), we explore the context of crises and conflicts in Niger and their psychosocial impacts on affected communities, including displaced people, migrants, and refugees. The episode highlights the integration of MHPSS into the humanitarian response of the Niger Red Cross, its collaboration with partners, and its leading role in coordinating actors through the MHPSS Technical Working Group. Hosted by Ahlem Cheffi, this episode offers both a strategic and field-based perspective, underscoring that mental health and psychosocial well-being remain essential priorities in emergency settings.

Dans cet épisode du podcast Heartbeat of Humanity, Ahlem Cheffi, spécialiste SMSPS du Centre du Mouvement de la Croix-Rouge et du Croissant-Rouge pour la Santé Mentale et le Soutien Psychosocial, échange avec le Dr Fabrice Ouédraogo et Yahaya Diallo (Croix-Rouge burkinabè), ainsi qu’avec Hema Lacina (Croix-Rouge danoise).

Cet épisode a été enregistré au Burkina Faso lors de la formation régionale sur les soins de santé mentale communautaires (SSMC), organisée conjointement par le Centre du Mouvement de la Croix-Rouge et du Croissant-Rouge pour et la Croix-Rouge burkinabè pour la SMSPS, et basée sur les lignes directrices Community mhGAP de l’OMS.

La discussion aborde les soins de santé mentale communautaires comme une approche de renforcement des systèmes, ancrée dans la force collective des communautés, et positionnant celles-ci comme des acteurs clés de la prévention, de la réponse précoce et de l’accès aux soins. La conversation met en lumière le rôle essentiel des communautés dans la réduction de la stigmatisation liée à la santé mentale, le soutien au bien-être et le développement de réponses SMSPS durables, culturellement adaptées à travers l’Afrique.

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Community Mental Health in Africa: Strengthening communities and systems 

In this episode of Heartbeat of Humanity, Ahlem Cheffi, MHPSS Hub Specialist, speaks with Dr. Fabrice Ouédraogo and Yahaya Diallo (Burkina Faso Red Cross) and Hema Lacina (Danish Red Cross).

This episode was recorded from Burkina Faso during the regional training on Community Mental Health Care (CMHC), jointly organized by the MHPSS Hub and the Burkina Faso Red Cross and based on the WHO Community mhGAP guidelines. 

The discussion frames community mental health care as a systems-strengthening approach, rooted in the collective strength of communities and positioning communities as key actors in prevention, early response, and access to care.

The conversation highlights the power of communities in reducing mental health stigma, supporting wellbeing, and advancing culturally grounded, sustainable MHPSS responses across Africa.

This episode focuses on the potential of sports in supporting inclusion and mental health.  Khalida Popal is an award-winning Afghan football pioneer and activist and the founder of the Girl Power organisation. 

Khalida joined us for a training in Copenhagen under the Sport Coach+ initiative, implemented in a partnership between the MHPSS Hub and the Olympic Refuge Foundation (ORF). The initiative aims to create trauma informed and healing centered sports environments for young athletes between the ages of 10 and 24 with a focus on those with a background of displacement and adversities.

Khalida and the Girl Power team have vast experience and expertise in using sports as a tool for empowerment, inclusion and mental well-being with a focus on women from marginalized groups. We invited Khalida to share some of the insights and learnings from her work.  

• Read more about Girl Power: https://www.girlpowerorg.com/   
• Read more about Sport Coach+ : https://www.sportcoachplus.org/

“Too far, too fast?”

In this sixth episode, Sarah Harrison, Director of the MHPSS Hub, and Dan Amias, Senior Innovation Learning Adviser at Elrha, speaks with Mercy Githara, MHPSS Manager at the Kenya Red Cross Society, and Anne de Graaf, Technical Officer at the World Health Organization (WHO) about two chatbots: STARS, a non-AI chatbot developed by WHO, and Chat Care, an AI chatbot being deployed in Kenya by the Red Cross.

Key resources for practitioners:
Kenya Red Cross Society: Chat Care, AI Powered Mental Health Chatbot  

WHO: Doing What Matters in Times of Stress evidence based self-help guide 

WHO: STARS chatbot for more information contact [email protected] 

Red Cross Digital MHPSS pledge: Leveraging and facilitating technology-empowered pathways  

MHPSS Hub resources on Suicide prevention:
Find infographics, videos, podcasts, guides and tools on suicide prevention

 Read more about the research:
STARS chatbot (non-AI): de Graaff A.M, et al. Evaluation of a Guided Chatbot Intervention for Young People in Jordan: Feasibility Randomized Controlled Trial JMIR Ment Health  

Keyan, D., et al.  The development of a World Health Organization transdiagnostic chatbot intervention for distressed adolescents and young adults. 

 Akhtar, A., et al. Scalable Technology for Adolescents and Youth to Reduce Stress in the Treatment of Common Mental Disorders in Jordan: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial. 

Karim Chatbot: Madianou, M. Nonhuman humanitarianism: when “AI for good” can be harmful. Information, Communication & Society

Torous, J. et al. Assessing generative artificial intelligence for mental health, The Lancet.

Spencer SW, Masboungi C. Enabling access or automating empathy? Using chatbots to support GBV survivors in conflicts and humanitarian emergencies, International Review of the Red Cross. 

Developing digital MHPSS resources:
Reach out to the MHPSS Hub: [email protected] or Elrha: [email protected] for collaboration on developing digital MHPSS approaches.

Evidence from the Frontline: Mental Health in Crisis-Affected Contexts is a six-episode mini-series produced in collaboration between the MHPSS Hub and Elrha, designed for practitioners working in humanitarian and crisis contexts, the series highlights impactful interventions and practical insights from experts in the field. 

Evidence from the Frontline: Mental Health in Crisis Affected Contexts, episode 5: EASE

“What matters to young people? Climate, jobs, and mental health.”

Early Adolescent Skills for Emotions (EASE) is an evidence-based group intervention that helps 10–15-year-olds in adversity-affected communities manage stress, anxiety, and depression through skills training. It includes seven sessions for adolescents and three for caregivers, using adapted Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) techniques delivered by trained non-specialist helpers. 

In this fifth episode, Sarah Harrison, Director of the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement MHPSS Hub, speaks with Professor Mark Jordans (researcher at  King’s College London and Director of Research and Development at War Child), and Dr Zeinab Hijazi (Global Lead on Mental Health at UNICEF), to hear more about EASE.

We learn that, while not a ‘magic wand’, EASE has shown significant results and could help fill a gap in mental health support for young people in crisis-affected and low-resource settings. Mark, Sarah, and Zeinab discuss the rigorous training, competencies, and supervision needed for non-specialist providers, and the journey to develop, test and adapt EASE for implementation worldwide, including scale-up in Ukraine. They discuss future research opportunities, such as youth-led research or strengthening and simplifying the intervention. We learn that EASE should be integrated into a broader system of care, informed by national policy frameworks and practice standards. 

Key resources for practitioners

Early Adolescent Skills for Emotions (EASE) – manual and practice materials in multiple languages published by the World Health Organisation

UNICEF Adolescent Mental Health Hub- resources for frontline workers, adolescents, and caregivers

Reach Now- a tool developed by War Child, for use by community members without a professional mental health background, to improve identification of mental health problems in young people and promote care seeking.

Read more about the research:

Mark J.D. Jordans et al. Evaluation of the Early Adolescent Skills for Emotions (EASE) intervention in Lebanon: A randomized controlled trial. Comprehensive Psychiatry, Volume 127 (2023). 

Bryant RA et al. (2022) Effectiveness of a brief group behavioural intervention on psychological distress in young adolescent Syrian refugees: A randomised controlled trial. PLoS Med 19(8): e1004046. 

Brown, F. et al. The Cultural and Contextual Adaptation Process of an Intervention to Reduce Psychological Distress in Young Adolescents Living in Lebanon. Front. Psychiatry, 23 March 2020, Sec. Public Mental Health, Volume 11 - 2020

Hamdani, Syed Usman et al. (2024) Effectiveness of a group psychological intervention to reduce psychosocial distress in adolescents in Pakistan: a single-blind, cluster randomised controlled trial. The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, Volume 8, Issue 8, 559 – 570. 

Evidence from the Frontline: Mental Health in Crisis-Affected Contexts is a six-episode mini-series produced in collaboration between the MHPSS Hub and Elrha, designed for practitioners working in humanitarian and crisis contexts, the series highlights impactful interventions and practical insights from experts in the field. 

Tackling the complex issue of perinatal mental health. 

Thinking Healthy (TH), a brief psychological intervention that can be delivered by trained and supervised community health care workers. It uses simple cognitive behavioral techniques to provide mothers with support and to improve mental health outcomes for the mother and new-born infant.

In this fourth episode, Sarah Harrison, Director of the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement MHPSS Hub, speaks with Dr Waood Afara, Senior Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Officer at the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Yemen‏, and Dr Elisabetta Dozio Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Specialist at Action Contre la Faim (Action Against Hunger- AAH) in France. Dr. Waood and Dr. Elisabetta are experts in both the research and practice of the Thinking Healthy intervention.

Together we examine why dealing with maternal depression is important in humanitarian settings and explain how the intervention works in programming, including how to integrate TH in the workload of already overburdened community health workers. The link between caring for mothers and improving outcomes for children is explored, as are the cultural adaptations required to implement TH and measure its effectiveness. Key insights include importance of empathy and understanding from community and family members to support mothers in recovering, and the critical role that community health workers can play in improved maternal mental health if trained, supervised, and empowered. 

Key resources for practitioners

Thinking Healthy: A manual for psychological management of perinatal depression (WHO manual in multiple languages) 

Thinking Healthy Training Guide for community health workers and volunteers (MHPSS Hub) 

Baby Friendly Spaces: Holistic Approach in Emergencies (ACF Guide) 

Read more about the research:

Dozio E, Wamba V, Pueugueu I. Adapting the Thinking Healthy Programme for Perinatal Depression: A Culturally Tailored Approach in Three Central African Countries. European Psychiatry. 2025;68(S1): S151-S151. doi:10.1192/j.eurpsy.2025.386

Tomlinson, M., Chaudhery, D., Ahmadzai, H. et al. Identifying and treating maternal mental health difficulties in Afghanistan: A feasibility study. Int J Ment Health Syst 14, 75 (2020). 

Evidence from the Frontline: Mental Health in Crisis-Affected Contexts is a six-episode mini-series produced in collaboration between the MHPSS Hub and Elrha, designed for practitioners working in humanitarian and crisis contexts, the series highlights impactful interventions and practical insights from experts in the field. 

On 3 September 2025 the docudrama the Voice of Hind Rajab had its world premiere during the 82nd Venice International Film Festival. The movie directed by Kaouther Ben Hania received 24 minutes of standing ovation and won the Grand Jury Prize.

For our colleague Nisreen Qawas, MHPSS director for the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, the voice of Hind Rajab was the person at the other end of the emergency call she received on 29th of January 2024 – the day five-year old Hind was killed alongside her family members and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society team that was sent to rescue her.   

 This was not the first or likely the last time Nisreen was losing colleagues in the line of duty, and not the first or likely the last time she had to deal with the loss and the feeling of responsibility. MHPSS Hub Director, Sarah Harrison interviewed Nisreen about moral injury in the line of duty.  

 Find more information about the work of Palestine Red Crescent Society:

 Website: Palestine Red Crescent Society

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/palestine-red-crescent-society-prcs-2083371b5/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PalestineRCS  

Find more information about Hind Rajab:  

 The Voice of Hind Rajab official trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_RC04CZpAY 

Hind Under Siege official trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loucaVTr85k 

The Killing of Hind Rajab Forensic Architecture: https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/the-killing-of-hind-rajab 

 The podcast Heartbeat of Humanity is mainly for staff and volunteers in the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement, especially staff and volunteers working in mental health and psychosocial support services.

Listen to the podcast here or subscribe on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast or wherever you find your podcasts.

Find more episodes of Heartbeat of Humanity.

When is a transdiagnostic approach the best route to quality mental health care in crisis affected context, and how does it work in practice?

In this third episode, Sarah Harrison, Director of the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement MHPSS Hub, talks to three experts with extensive experience with CETA, the Common Elements Treatment Approach System of Care: Dr Laura Murray (Founder, CETA Global; Senior Scientist, john Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health), Cherry Soemyint (CETA trainer, Myanmar) and David Mwanza (CETA trainer, Zambia).

Together they explore how CETA is adapted for different service-user groups and contexts; and CETA’s potential to be linked with different interventions for long-term impact, as well as approaches to supervision and cost-effectiveness considerations. They talk about how it can be flexibly implemented and adapted to diverse countries, communities and contexts in response to needs-with CETA clients ranging from people with HIV in Zambia, to pregnant and lactating mothers in the Thai Burmese border.

CETA is a transdiagnostic system of care; starting with a brief assessment that helps triage and create a clinical care pathway, along with ongoing monitoring and evaluation. It is evidence-based for all ages (children, youth and adults) and is built from evidence-based CBT-cognitive behavioural therapy elements. It is meant to streamline and simplify care – moving away from siloed assessments and treatments (or those that assess or treat only one problem area).

Key resources for practitioners:

www.cetaglobal.org

www.ceta-global.com

Read more about the research:

Evaluation of phone-delivered psychotherapy for refugee children

Research Snapshot: Can a mental health intervention help people in humanitarian settings manage chronic diseases?

Integrating an evidence-based mental health intervention into non-communicable disease care (coming soon)

Evidence from the Frontline: Mental Health in Crisis-Affected Contexts is a six-episode mini-series produced in collaboration between the MHPSS Hub and Elrha, designed for practitioners working in humanitarian and crisis contexts, the series highlights impactful interventions and practical insights from experts in the field.