Discusses innovative mental health initiatives to mobilize communities to optimize the emotional well-being of children who have been exposed to war and displacement. Community-based programs use paraprofessionals, relief workers, social workers, counselors, teachers, and nurses to provide services through local agencies, religious groups, and international nongovernmental organizations. Comprehensive-integrated programs typically deliver a broader array of services that go beyond psychosocial programs to meet the children’s and community’s multiple needs. Community-managed programs enable residents of a local area to identify their own problems, select their own project workers, and evaluate and make changes to programs. Even though these programs differ in concept and approach, they face common challenges, including identifying community resources, motivating community members to be involved in needs assessments and program development, making training in skills and knowledge into an ongoing activity, and building leadership and community networks that bridge political and social differences. Any given program needs to be flexible enough to adapt to local and changing realities.
