Vol. 2 No. 1 (2026)

Conceptual Insigths and Critical Reflections

Learning Inside the System: What Community-Based MHPSS Practice in Pakistan Teaches Us About Global Mental Health {under peer review}

Published 28-04-2026

  • Sumbal Gilani

Sumbal Gilani
University of Glasgow

Abstract

In this paper, the author argues that the pedagogical innovations called for in the global mental health (GMH) education are not waiting to be designed, in many cases they have already been built, tested against difficult realities, and quietly discarded form the international conversations simply because they weakly emerged from the Global South. Responding to the call by Karadzhov (2025) for the contextualized, collaborative, and future-oriented approaches to GMH competency development, this paper draws on the author's conceptual insights and critical reflections resulting from an extended practitioner experience in Pakistan to propose a model termed system-embedded pedagogy, an approach in which professional formation happens inside live service delivery systems rather that in preparation for them. Four interconnected MHPSS initiatives are examined through an explicit pedagogical lens: the I Support My Friends, peer-support programme for adolescents; sports-based mental health programming; the establishment of community-based protection systems, and district protection units (DCPUs) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the Child Protection Van (CP Van) outreach model. Each case is mapped onto a recognized pedagogical mode, service and experiential learning, reflective supervision, peer-led and collaborative learning, problem-based learning, to demonstrate what these approaches look like when they are operationalized within a functioning, resource-constrained, community-anchored system. The paper argues that GMH academic curricula must move from treating field experience as supplementary to treating it as the spine around which theory is organized; that reflective supervision must be recognized and taught as a core pedagogical technology, not a postgraduate add-on; and that the knowledge generated in LMIC practice systems constitutes a contribution to the global GMH pedagogical evidence base, not a local exception to it.

Keywords

global mental health, pedagogy, experiential learning, MHPSS, Pakistan, competency development, community psychology, decolonial training, peer support, child protection

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