The Need
Behind every COVID-19 patient was a healthcare worker carrying a weight the world rarely saw. Filipino nurses, doctors, and frontline health staff faced not just the physical demands of a pandemic — but the psychological toll of prolonged crisis, grief, and uncertainty. Mental health support for healthcare workers wasn’t a luxury during COVID-19. It was an urgent, largely unmet need that threatened the very people the health system depended on most — and without it, the frontline was quietly breaking.
The Intervention
To address these challenges, HERO PH integrates mental health capacity building, Train-the-Trainer deployment, and health policy advocacy. It trains healthcare workers as mental health champions using globally tested modules adapted for the Philippine context — equipping them to cope and to cascade resilience-building knowledge within their own institutions, deploys certified HCWs through a Train-the-Trainer model into primary and secondary healthcare settings across the Philippines, which then expanded to Vietnam and Cambodia, and engages local health authorities as advocates — ensuring that healthcare worker mental health becomes not just a program, but a lasting policy priority.
Country:
Phillippines
SDGs
Key Priority Area/s:
Skills, Education & Entrepeneurship
Health & Sanitation
Donor:
SHIP, Gileap
Partners:
Project Hope, NYC Health Hospitals, Center for Disaster Philanthropy, Argao Psych, League of the Municipalities of the Philippines, DOH, Philippine Mental Health Association Inc., In Touch Philippines
Program Localized
Training materials adapted for local context in the Philippines, then expanding to Cambodia and Vietnam
Goals Achieved:
HCWs Trained & Coached
Train-the-Trainer sessions delivered with follow-on coaching for newly certified HCWs
Goals Achieved:
Authorities Engaged
Local health authorities in the Philippines engaged to advocate for HCW mental health
Goals Achieved:
Impact Monitored
Program outcomes evaluated across all three countries with regular reporting to Project HOPE
Goals Achieved:
Featured Projects
LIKAYAN
Champions of Community Care: COVID-19 Management Training for Filipino Midwives
TB Mind Asia - Tuberculosis - Mental Health Integration Initiative Development Asia
Project SHIELD
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