Design and Evaluation of Peer Supervision for Community Mental Health Workers: A Task-Shifting Strategy in Low-Resource Settings

Abstract

The use of Lay Mental Health Workers (LMHWs) to tackle the treatment gap in low-resource settings is well established, and although they often receive training, the potential of proper supervision to improve outcomes remains untapped. Indeed, given the strain on expert resources, peer-supervision models based on supervisors’ seniority of work experience have significant potential especially in relation to community knowledge and embedding of LMHWs. This study summarizes the evaluation of a pilot program for peer supervision on the basis of Social Cognitive Theories of Self-Efficacy for LMHWs in Kerala, India. Two experienced LMHWs worked as supervisors for a total of 12 LMHWs over the course of a year. These participants were subsequently interviewed to analyze their experiences in order to evaluate the potential of peer supervision and distil relevant information to improve future training of LMHWs. The findings include improved performance and emotional support for the participants.

Empowerment of Lay Mental Health Workers and Junior Psychologists Online in a Task-Shared, Rural Setting in Kerala, India

“… 29 , 67 The use of task-sharing to address human resource shortages has been established to involve a reconfiguring of specialists as supervisors and mentors of junior colleagues and LMHWs. 13 , 68 This study found that it was possible to provide empowering supervision online through the application of dynamic supervision that focused on those aspects of empowerment that could be identified as the priority, resulting in a responsiveness to needs and improved outcomes.…”

Analysis of implementation processes in a hybrid effectiveness-implementation trial of interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) for major depressive disorder in prisons: Training, supervision, and recommendations

“…Finally, train-the-trainer approaches or self-organized learning collaboratives can help to scale expertise. For example, experienced lay mental health counselors can play an important role in supervising other lay mental health counselors [ 41 ] and peer-to-peer supervision can be a sustainable quality assurance method [ 35 ]. However, all or almost all of these approaches have relied on outside (often research) funds to provide training, supervision, and technical assistance.…”