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Community mental health · Commissioned research and systems mapping
Agora
A Swedish international foundation commissioned research into faith-based mental-health support in Nigeria. FHIL delivered research findings, systems maps, learning materials, and a post-engagement report. The work made community roles and referral gaps visible for further planning.
Explore the Agora decision mapThe interactive pathway below illustrates what a future pilot would need to resolve. It is not a live care platform or a record of completed referrals.
Faith-sensitive mental health and psychosocial support
Trust opens the door.
Who carries the handoff?
Explore the conditions a community pathway must meet—and the smallest credible pilot an institution could specify.
The institutional question
Can trusted first contact become a reliable route to care?
support
community actor
service
Trust carries the first contact. The next step is unclear.
Without an agreed process, a named recipient and feedback, the person can become lost between community support and formal services.
Schematic routes adapted from the framework, p. 10. No frequency or outcome estimates are implied.
The design response
Give every handoff an owner.
Inspect the responsibilities that a local institution would need to agree and test.
Responsible: Named sender + named receiving contact
Make the referral a connection that can be completed.
Agree how the receiving service accepts a referral, how essential information is shared and who checks what happens next.
A referral is sent, but nobody receives or follows it.
A receiving contact, an agreed handoff process and a privacy-respecting way to confirm acceptance and follow-up.
Design synthesis · Framework, pp. 10, 18 · FHIL pilot-specification method
Keep the evidence in its proper category
What supports this—and what does it leave open?
Discovery and design
The framework describes a field-informed method.
It reports discovery in North Central Nigeria and identifies trust, role boundaries, referral gaps, safeguarding and supervision as design concerns.
Discovery and pathway design do not establish clinical effectiveness. The framework does not report a study sample, comparison or measured Agora clinical outcomes.
Faith-sensitive MHPSS framework · pp. 5–7, 10, 18, 21
The smallest credible pilot · scope to agree
Specify one complete pathway.
One geography. One population. One support and referral route. The institution chooses these after confirming need, ownership and receiving capacity.
Name the institutional decision owner, community partners, supervisor, receiving service and follow-up owner. Agree the intended population, permitted activities, consent and information flows. Clinical and operational leads set escalation rules and identify the approvals required before live work.
Confirm committed availability, training, supervision and backup. Specify referral capacity, partner effort, coordination and measurement costs. Examine what happens if uptake is low or receiving demand exceeds capacity.
Define reach and uptake; time to first contact; accepted and completed referrals; loss to follow-up; and operating workload. State the denominator, time window and source for each measure. Include reported harm, safeguarding concerns and a response process. Clinical outcomes need a separately appropriate evaluation design.
Agree evidence thresholds and pause or stop conditions with the sponsor and clinical / operational leads before a live pilot. Record who can act on concerns. The final specification sets scope, duration, resources, evidence and decision rules; it does not itself establish that the intervention works.
A recommendation and pilot specification the institution can review. Running the pilot, securing partnerships and approvals, and establishing clinical effectiveness are subsequent work.
Illustrative application of the framework, pp. 18, 22, and FHIL pilot-specification method. No pilot approval or results are claimed.
The commission and evidence behind Agora
A completed institutional mandate
The foundation funded research into the support community and faith actors provide. The work examined training, safeguards, and referral into care. FHIL does not name the commissioning institution here.
The delivered research and systems maps inform the pathway questions shown above. The proposed roles, consent arrangements, supervision, and referral responsibilities still require local agreement and testing.
What the evidence supports
Agora establishes commissioned research and systems mapping. The available record does not establish live platform use, an executed clinical pilot, improved referrals, or clinical and population outcomes. The research can inform a pilot design; it is not evidence that the pilot has run.
What the next institution receives
A further engagement can define a local pilot: intended users, responsible actors, receiving services, safeguards, staffing, costs, measures, and decision criteria. This is a proposed next commission, not a completed delivery claim. Local capacity and required approvals must be established before live implementation.
Begin a conversation
Choose the level of support the decision requires.
Use the 48-Hour Brief for rapid due diligence. Use the 45-Day Sprint to test one innovation before a larger commitment. Use the Portfolio Review after capital is committed and before the next allocation.