Blog
Bridging Countries and Building Capacity: A Bright Path Forward for Global Child Mental Health
By Peter Raucci, Director, Global Fellowships Strategy, Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Global Center for Child and Adolescent Mental Health at the Child Mind Institute
In May of 2025, I had the opportunity to visit Kenya to explore a possible expansion of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Global Center for Child and Adolescent Mental Health at the Child Mind Institute’s Clinical Fellowship model. Our goal was to build a new training pipeline connecting talented Kenyan clinicians with experts at the renowned Stellenbosch University in South Africa. The trip was eye-opening — not only because of the talent and dedication of the clinicians we met in Nairobi and Mombasa, Kenya’s two largest cities, but also because it reaffirmed a fundamental truth about global mental health. Collaboration across borders is essential.
This vision has now turned into a powerful reality. I’m proud to share that after identifying critical needs during the Kenya trip, we were able to select our first cohort of Fellows. These exceptional clinicians whose expertise, dedication, and deep commitment to their communities position them to be transformative leaders, are now on track to help pioneer this partnership.
Our inaugural fellows:
- Muthoni Muthiga, psychiatrist
- Milcah Olando, psychiatrist
- Mercy Chege, psychologist
The plan is for the Fellows to spend a period of up to two years in South Africa and Kenya, receiving intensive training in child and adolescent mental health from the experts at Stellenbosch University. After concluding their Fellowship, all three have committed to continuing their work in Kenya’s public sector — exactly where their knowledge and skills are needed most.
During the visit to Kenya, I witnessed an urgent and growing crisis in access to mental health care for youth. Through the SNF Global Center Fellowships Program, we aim to strengthen the capacity of the workforce by training local specialists like our inaugural Fellows. They can provide culturally responsive, evidence-based care while collaboratively building systems that prioritize youth mental health care.
Facilities like Kenyatta National Hospital and Mathari National Teaching and Referral Hospital in Nairobi — as well as public clinics in Mombasa County and Kilifi County — are in urgent need of CAMH specialists. For instance, in Kilifi County, only two psychiatric nurses serve a population of around 1.2 million people — leaving a staggering gap in mental health support for both youths and adults. Additionally, my conversations with clinicians at Aga Khan University (Kenya), a private institution with strong public partnerships that could serve as a vital hub for the Fellowship, further reinforced that sense of urgency. The clinicians I met are dedicated to improving outcomes for children and families. And what they need is time, training, mentorship, and the opportunity to grow into leadership roles in the field.
That’s why cross-country training opportunities like this matter. They don’t just build the skills of individual practitioners. They strengthen clinical networks, inspire new research, and ultimately transform systems of care. We are exploring ways to adapt our model to meet the unique needs and strengths of East and Southern Africa. Kenya has a fast-growing population of young people, yet trained CAMH specialists remain critically few. By training clinicians in South Africa and supporting their return to Kenya, we aim to help support a growing community of local experts working in public hospitals, university settings, and community mental health systems.
Ayesha Mian, MD, who sits on the Executive Council of the International Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions (IACAPAP), joined me on the trip.
When reflecting on how much is being done in the field of global child and adolescent mental health, she says, “The answer must lie in disruptive solutions, collaborations, regional partnerships and cross disciplinary interventions that build and sustain systems. The partnership between Kenya and South Africa provides just such an opportunity, where the conversations ranged from on ground training of child and adolescent health care professionals to developing systems of care across the country and the region through policy, literacy, and capacity building.”
Partnerships between low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and high-income countries (HICs) have the opportunity for impact. What’s just as powerful, perhaps even more transformative, are partnerships between LMICs themselves — countries where the economic, cultural, and systemic realities show evidence of pattern. South-South collaboration has the potential to build more contextually appropriate models of care with Fellows learning from mentors who understand the day-to-day realities of practicing in resource-constrained systems. Our Fellowship model has already proven successful in linking Mozambique with Brazil, where generalist clinicians receive training in child and adolescent mental health specializations.
This kind of collaboration isn’t about one-way knowledge transfer. It’s about co-creating solutions that are sustainable, regionally relevant, and driven by the people who will carry them forward. Over time, as this capacity grows, Kenya itself has the potential to become a regional hub for CAMH training — serving as a center of excellence for East Africa, including Uganda, Tanzania, and beyond.
The Fellowship model reflects the Child Mind Institute’s commitment to translating clinical excellence into scalable, global workforce solutions that strengthen public systems of care.
