World Mental Health Day 2025: “Access to Services—Mental Health in Catastrophes and Emergencies”

Author: Verol Billett, KAHLE Team Lead (Healing)

World Mental Health Day is as important as ever. The theme, “Access to services – mental health in catastrophes and emergencies,” highlights the urgent need for mental health systems that are resilient, equitable, and community-based. This is important for us to focus on, as we can all acknowledge that disasters are one of the surest ways that we can see the inequalities and inequities embedded in our systems. It is at this point we see the strains on our well-being or our general resources. As a result, emergency responses must include mental health.

The theme,“Access to services – mental health in catastrophes and emergencies” highlights the urgent need for mental health systems that are resilient, equitable, and community-based.

At KAHLE Journey Ltd, we operationalize this theme every day by how we act in assisting communities (proactively and reactively) who need to be furnished with the necessary skills to build resilience and heal. For us, our aim is to contribute to the decentralization of care and educate the population on how they can administer care to themselves and each other so that there is greater equity for mental health. This can then facilitate further concentration on the more severe cases, which would lead to better outcomes. This, in essence, is social justice in psychological action.

 

Building a Justice-Oriented Psychology

• Trauma-informed education: Persons from all sectors are and can be trained in emotional literacy and trauma-awareness, and can transform their spaces (e.g., classrooms, homes, and workplaces). At KAHLE, our workshops equip all persons from every sector and level of society to recognize trauma’s impact and respond with empathy rather than punishment and dismissals.

• Decentralizing care: For many Jamaican communities, traditional therapy is inaccessible or stigmatized. That’s why we are seeking to create opportunities for all categories of persons to access and learn how to give psychological support in their everyday spaces that are culturally grounded and trusted.

• Policy engagement: Silence is complicity. Psychologists must advocate for systemic reform in various areas such as incarceration, education, and mental health funding. In fact, our health sector needs attention as trauma-informed care becomes a central feature, starting with training. If this becomes our reality, we can then say we have a truly integrative health sector. KAHLE actively participates in policy dialogues, fora, and advocacy networks to push for equitable access to care, especially in crisis contexts.

Caribbean Urgency: Why This Matters Now

KAHLE Journey’s work offers a model on how to answer: building resilient, trauma-informed systems, community-led responses, and accessible psychological support in moments of crisis, before and beyond.

Western psychology often emphasizes individualism, but Caribbean healing traditions are communal at their core. Ubuntu (“I am because we are”) reminds us that emotional well-being is shared, not solitary. As a result, through interventions such as our Tuff It Out and Buil’ Series and our KAHLE Journey Unheard Podcast, we are offering easy-to-use strategies and offering spaces to the public to aid in education and self-care practices. As we see that this is just our beginning, we have committed to creating a trauma-informed society and therefore the healing of our people.

Healing Minds and Systems Together

Psychology and social justice are inseparable. Social injustices inflict psychological harm; psychology, when justice-aligned, becomes a tool for systemic healing.

As we recognize World Mental Health Day 2025, let’s answer its call by ensuring that every person, even in emergencies, can access mental health care. Let’s expand beyond traditional psychology practices and enter into communities, schools, and policies.

KAHLE Journey Ltd stands at that intersection: contributing to decolonizing care, restoring relationships, and empowering collective transformation. To heal the mind, we must heal the world. To heal the world, we must transform how we understand our minds, our bodies, and the social roots.

Ase!

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