Mental Health, Recovery, and the Community

[...]the number of psychiatric beds and hospitalizations remains high in several countries. [...]the treatment of mental health problems has traditionally been guided by a cure-oriented approach followed by rehabilitation efforts to reinsert individuals in society after substantial periods of hospitalization. Primary strategies to fight stigma identified by mental health care professionals were education and working on recovery and social inclusion, while service users focused on social contacts and person-centered strategies. [...]deinstitutionalization may have unintended and adverse consequences like unemployment, crime, and deprivation (in particular in urban areas), which touches upon recent expert opinions that community treatment is not necessarily of high quality [3] nor better than a hospital admission [2, 9]. The role of community support and personal and social capital in the recovery process is addressed in several papers, but takes a central position in the paper by S. Vindevogel et al., in which they explore the perspectives of former child soldiers and their peers to identify sources of resilience and agency among young adults in the aftermath of the armed conflict in Uganda.