Socios En Salud has been implementing the Healthy Thinking program of the World Health Organization (WHO) for six months. This initiative, which was implemented with 23 pregnant women in Carabayllo, now plans to address 120 women to directly address behaviors regarding the care of the mother and child.
Healthy Thoughts focuses not only on empowering the mother to modify her negative thoughts and behaviors for the good of her own health, but also directly addresses behaviors regarding the care of the child, says the specialist from salud mental, Margoth Aguilar.
As Aguilar mentions, “This program is based on the community psychosocial model and is aimed at the prevention of peri-natal depression, which is often not seen as a problem that requires attention and has a great burden of stigma in society.”
According to Aguilar, “This program is based on the community psychosocial model and is aimed at the prevention of peri-natal depression, which is often not seen as a problem that requires attention and has a great burden of stigma in society.
Thus, for four days Socios En Salud launched the training aimed at community health agents on the basic criteria for emotional support and identifying mothers with symptoms of depression, promoting mental health, while facilitating the development of a positive bond between mother and child.
This capacity building training took place from October 30 to November 3 and was attended by community health workers from Carabayllo, a technical team from the Community Mental Health Centers of Carabayllo and Puente Piedra of the Ministry of Health, EsSalud, as well as the Ministry of Health of Ecuador and the Pan American Health Organization of Ecuador.