In many areasof armed conflict there is an urgent need for relevant knowledge and practical skills around mental health and psychosocial interventions. Knowledge developed at Western universities, or in Western practice, does not easily translate into practice in a non-western context. In this article, an approach to developing relevant knowledge and practical know-how is described that can be utilized within the context of a developing country. This approach also is useful when working with immigrants and refugees in a western context.

A community based sociotherapy programme was implemented in the North of Rwanda in 200.5. This article describes the background of sociotherapy, explains its principles and application in the rapy for refugees in the Netherlands, and gives a justification for the introduction of the approach in a particular setting in post war and post genocide Rwanda. It then focuses on the development of the programme in this setting and addresses recruitment criteria for facilitators.

This paper reviews what is currently known from research about the effectiveness of interventions to address mental health problems in children and adolescents affected by armed conflict. The focus will be on interventions delivered in conflict affected countries either during active humanitarian emergencies or during the post conflict period. The paper will discuss two main paradigms of intervention dominating the field: psychosocial approaches and clinical/psychiatric approaches.

Evaluation of psychosocial programmes can be carried out for a variety reasons. It is the nature of these reasons that determines what is exactly is evaluated, what criteria and which methods are used. In this article, the focus is on evaluation as a pathway to learn from experience and develop expertise. Some evaluation criteria are discussed, and a step-by-step plan is described.

Keywords: effectiveness, evaluation criteria, impact, indicators