Abstract
Providing social support to mentally ill/distressed individuals has gained immense attention in the Global Mental Health (GMH) field. Still, less attention is given to designing an effective and practicable social model. Also, while social support is advised as an adjuvant to biomedical treatment, mental health literature still lacks ample empirical examples of such models from resource-stretched settings. This study, aims to explore what and how involved in devising and implementing an effective social model of care employable as an adjuvant service to biomedical treatment through a case study of mental health NGO, Chhahari Nepal for Mental health (CNMH). We adopted an in-depth exploratory case study approach to investigate and present a thick, contextualised description of the design process. Exhaustive data was collected through interviews (19), group discussions, direct observations, participant observations and archival records. Our findings revealed that instead of understanding clients independently of the external context, the organisation employed a thick social approach to understand and analyse the effects of multi-faceted factors, actors, environments and their interplay on the clients. This apprehension was achieved by Chhahari’s participation in diverse research projects, which led it to harness and exchange knowledge. Enhancing knowledge further allowed the organisation to design a conceptual framework and individualised social support strategies that are delivered through diverse social actors who are weaved into (what we call) a network of support around clients. This study utilised a multidisciplinary methodological and theoretical perspective from the field of social work, public health and organisational studies which assisted in creating a hybrid interface between the divergent fields while the latter discipline helped articulate the relationality between the steps involved in design and implementation process.