Mental Health Care by Community Health Agents: what do they learn in their everyday work?

This paper is aimed at describing the mental health care knowledge built by Community Health Agents while providing mental health care. This is qualitative research drawing on Social Constructionism as its theoretical framework. Data were gathered from focal groups and then analyzed and assigned to the following thematic categories: 'We need to guide the families', encompassing the meanings related to providing care to families living with mental distress; 'Just stopping and listening', in which the repertoire concerning the usage of relationship technologies in mental health care is described; 'We know about it because we are around', outlining the strategies employed in building wisdom; and finally the category describing the meanings related to being afraid of the mentally ill: 'We are afraid of what we see'. The knowledge built by Community Health Agents in their everyday work, once reflected upon and systematized, is shown to be potent in creating care practices in accordance with the psychosocial paradigm of assisting people and families in mental distress. Adapted from the source document.