By Lawal Seun
When most mental health conversations are happening on social media and online platforms, one Nigerian organisation decided to go where the internet does not always reach, into the heart of Ibadan’s communities.
Between May and June 2026, Counseling Africa conducted a postpartum depression (PPD) sensitization outreach across ten primary health centres (PHCs) in Ibadan, bringing mental health education directly to pregnant women and frontline health workers in some of the city’s underserved communities.
The outreach spanned ten communities: Sango, Ojoo, Iwo Road, Oke Apon, Agbowo, Eleyele, Oke Itunu, Apete, Onireke, and Ogunpa. In five of these communities, the team engaged directly with women attending antenatal clinic (ANC) sessions, delivering talks on postpartum depression, what it is, how to recognise it, and where to seek help. In all ten communities, educational infographics on PPD were pasted at visible points within the health centres for ongoing awareness beyond each visit. Pamphlets on mental health and emotional wellbeing were also distributed to mothers on speaking days, giving them something tangible to take home and share with family.
Over 100 mothers were reached through the ANC sessions. Health workers who received the outreach included hospital staff, community health officers, public health workers, and mental health workers, reflecting the organisation’s understanding that community mental health is a shared responsibility across every level of care.
At the centre of the outreach was the formal launch of a resource booklet that Counseling Africa describes as a first of its kind in Nigeria: The Community Mental Health Framework: Reference Standard and Gap Analysis Tool for Stakeholders. Authored by Mr. Olusegun Iyejare, a licensed developmental psychologist and counsellor and founder of Counseling Africa, the framework is the first known document to bring every category of community mental health stakeholder under one operational structure, with clearly defined roles for government agencies, NGOs, primary health centres and facility managers, traditional and community leaders, religious institutions, schools, families, researchers, the media, donors, and the private sector.
“There has been no working framework that pulls all of these stakeholders together and tells each one exactly what their role is,” Iyejare explained. “Community mental health cannot work when everyone is operating in isolation. This framework gives us a common language and a shared structure.” The booklet, distributed to health workers and community stakeholders during the outreach, marks the first print of what the organisation intends to push into wider circulation, to policymakers, health institutions, civil society organisations, and development partners across Nigeria.
The outreach itself was driven by Iyejare’s concern about a widening gap between online mental health content and what ordinary Nigerians in communities actually know. “Most of the mental health conversations happening today are online. People with internet access can at least look things up. But people in our communities are almost entirely cut off from this information, and our outreach confirmed this. Most of the mothers we met had never heard of postpartum depression before. We were their first contact with this information.”
That reality, he said, shaped Counseling Africa’s decision to prioritise pregnant and postpartum women as a starting point. “Pregnant women are a vulnerable group. They need the most urgent attention. But this is only the beginning, we are looking forward to reaching other demographic groups in the coming months.”
As postpartum depression continues to be underdiagnosed and underreported across Nigeria, Counseling Africa’s Ibadan outreach signals something larger than a sensitization campaign. It is the beginning of a structured, stakeholder-driven approach to community mental health that the organisation hopes will set a new standard for how Nigeria addresses mental wellness at the grassroots level.