Maternal Mental Health: A Toolkit for Engaging Faith Actors as Change Agents

"With the necessary tools and support, faith actors can be equipped to respond compassionately and practically to the maternal mental health needs in their communities. Faith actors can be agents for positive change that leads to healthier mothers, families, and societies."

Religious leaders, traditional and faith healers, pastors and imams, and other faith actors are often some of the most respected voices who naturally shape community attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours. Pregnancy and caring for young children are significant life adjustments that frequently add physical, emotional, and mental strain on girls and women in the perinatal period. Faith actors can facilitate open dialogue on mental well-being, provide theological dimensions of mental health, and promote positive mental health behaviours and services in their communities. This toolkit is designed to engage faith actors as change agents for good maternal mental health. It was developed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)'s MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership project.

The toolkit is designed to equip diverse faith actors with the information and tools needed to raise awareness, deconstruct myths, and address barriers that inhibit positive maternal mental health. It outlines lay definitions of mental health in general and maternal mental health in particular (with a focus on the perinatal period: from pregnancy to up to 2 years post-delivery), summarises facts that address myths and misconceptions of maternal mental health, addresses various faith theological and scriptural backgrounds related to mental health, and suggests content for community messages (to be shared across formal and informal platforms, including social media) that support good maternal mental health.

According to MOMENTUM, with the proper support and job aids provided in this toolkit, faith actors can:

• Gain knowledge and skills to combat stigma and discrimination around mental disorders and how they affect different populations of girls and women;
• Learn to address some of the contextually specific mental, emotional, social, and logistical concerns and barriers for promoting and protecting mental health;
• Discover how to integrate evidence-based, faith-informed messaging on maternal mental health to promote well-being of their community; and
• Understand early detection of mental distress and referral to local support and services that respond to individual needs.

While most of the content is universally relevant across various faith systems, religion-specific messages are provided in the annexes for the three largest religions globally - Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism. Information provided is expected to be contextualised as needed according to the language, geography, religion, and cultural background of the particular community.

Editor's note: On February 3 2022, MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership hosted a webinar to review a landscape assessment of faith actors and organisations' involvement in maternal mental health that was undertaken as part of toolkit development. Click on the video below to watch the recording.