September 2026

Table of Contents

SPECIAL COMMEMORATIVE DAY FOCUS

Special Focus: International Day to Protect Education from Attack

International Day to Protect Education from Attack. UNESCO, 9 September 2026. Attacks on educational institutions, students, and teachers continue to threaten the right to quality education, particularly in contexts of armed conflict. Established by the UN General Assembly in 2020, the International Day to Protect Education from Attack raises awareness of the need to safeguard education and support students, teachers, and education communities affected by conflict. In 2024 and 2025, 8,566 attacks on educational institutions were reported, compared with 6,000 in 2022 and 2023. The 2026 global observance will take place under the theme “Can education survive attack? The resilience of human communities.”

UN COMMEMORATIVE DAYS – September

• September 5 – International Day of the World’s Indigenous Women and Girls
• September 8 – International Literacy Day
• September 9 –  International Day to Protect Education from Attack 
• September 21 – International Day of Peace
• September 25 – Centenary of the Slavery Convention
• September 28 – International Day for Universal Access to Information

International Day of the World’s Indigenous Women and Girls. United Nations, 5 September 2026. The International Day of the World’s Indigenous Women and Girls recognizes the leadership, knowledge, rights, and contributions of Indigenous women and girls, including their roles in sustaining Indigenous knowledge, languages, cultures, communities, lands, and biodiversity. The observance also draws attention to structural inequalities and discrimination they continue to face, including gender-based violence, barriers to education and health care, and limited participation in decision-making. Established by the UN General Assembly in 2025, the International Day is observed annually on 5 September.

International Literacy Day. UNESCO, 8 September 2026. International Literacy Day, observed annually on 8 September, promotes literacy as a fundamental human right and a foundation for more inclusive and sustainable societies. Despite progress, significant literacy and education inequalities persist globally. In 2024, at least 739 million youth and adults lacked basic literacy skills, while four in ten children had not reached minimum proficiency in reading, and 272 million children and adolescents were out of school in 2023. Marking the 60th anniversary of International Literacy Day, the 2026 observance will take place under the theme “Literacy for people, the planet and prosperity,” drawing attention to progress in literacy as well as persistent and emerging challenges.

International Day of Peace. United Nations, 21 September 2026. The International Day of Peace, observed annually on 21 September, is devoted to strengthening the ideals of peace among and within nations and peoples. Established by the UN General Assembly in 1981, the Day was designated in 2001 as a period of non-violence and cease-fire. The 2026 observance, under the theme “Invest in Peace: For Everyone, Everywhere, Every Day,” calls for investment in peace through everyday actions and emphasizes that everyone has a role to play. Actions can include helping others, creating opportunities for dialogue, promoting positive change, and sharing stories of peace and hope.

Centenary of the Slavery Convention. OHCHR, 25 September 2026. The Slavery Convention, adopted in Geneva on 25 September 1926 and now ratified by 99 States, was the first international treaty to recognize freedom from slavery as a fundamental human right. It laid the foundations of modern human rights law and galvanised global action against exploitation. Around 50 million people globally continue to be subjected to contemporary forms of slavery, which exist in every country and across many sectors of the global economy.

International Day for Universal Access to Information 2026. UNESCO. 28–30 September 2026, Freetown, Sierra Leone. The Government of Sierra Leone, in collaboration with UNESCO, will host the Global Conference commemorating the International Day for Universal Access to Information under the theme “Upholding Information Integrity in the Digital Age: The role of access to Information in addressing Information Disorder.” The International Day programme will take place on 28 September from 9:00–17:05 and will be held back-to-back with the 17th International Conference of Information Commissioners (ICIC 2026), with the overall conference programme continuing through 30 September. 

GNPHR NEWS AND EVENTS

GNPHR 6th Anniversary Celebration

The GNPHR will celebrate its sixth anniversary with events on 10 and 17 October, in conjunction with World Mental Health Day. The program will include a screening of Another Summer and a live Q&A with director Alzbeta Kovandova-Bartonickova. For additional details: see here

LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/company/global-network-of-psychologists-for-human-rights/posts/

Ways to Participate in Global Network Activities

• • Contribute to the GNPHR Writing Project 
    The GNPHR invites short, idea-driven pieces that raise questions, encourage reflection, and explore the intersection of psychology and human rights. Contributions should focus on insights, arguments, or emerging issues rather than personal narrative. To participate, review the contributor guidelines, select a topic, and send your proposal or questions to writing@humanrightspsychology.org.
  • Share Your Experiences and Examples
    We welcome narrative accounts from your professional experience that illustrate how human rights arise in practice. You might describe a situation where you protected, failed to protect, or advocated for human rights in your work. Submissions (500–1000 words) can draw from clinical, research, academic, applied, or volunteer contexts. Please send your story to Marlena Plavšić (marlena_plavsic@hotmail.com) and indicate if you would like to remain anonymous.
  • Share Your Expertise and Opinions
    We invite you to contribute a blog or opinion piece on general human rights issues; human rights education or strategies for raising the profile of human rights within psychology or your professional life. Students are welcome to contribute, including on student needs for learning about and addressing human rights. Please contact the GNPHR Blog editor (blogeditor@humanrightspsychology.org) with ideas for the article you would like to write!
  • Send articles/news/events
    If you come across a human rights article or news, or know of an upcoming human rights event, please send for publication in the Bulletin. Send to the Bulletin editor Polli Hagenaars (polli.hagenaars@gmail.com).
  • Want to stay connected with the GNPHR? Subscribe to the GNPHR Network.

Webinars 

Webinar Library – Human Rights Education: https://humanrightspsychology.org/webinars/

Blogs

The Right to Be Heard: Language, Access, and Justice in Mental Health

Dr Shagufta Nasir

The right to health, including mental health, is recognised within international human rights agreements. However, having services available does not always mean they are easy to access. For individuals who do not speak the main language of a healthcare system, this gap can reveal significant power imbalances. Language barriers can become a significant barrier to seeking and receiving help. Interpreters in healthcare play a crucial role as facilitators of individuals’ ability to be heard. Language carries social and cultural meanings that can shape trust, identity, and access.

CONTENT AREAS

General

Lebanon Ends Executions: Where Does the Death Penalty Still Exist in 2026? AJLabs, Al Jazeera, 12 August 2026. Lebanon has become the first country in the Middle East to abolish the death penalty. A majority of the 128-member parliament voted in favour of scrapping capital punishment, with death sentences to be replaced by life imprisonment with aggravated hard labour. Lebanon had observed an unofficial moratorium on executions since January 2004, although its courts continued to issue death sentences. At the end of 2025, 85 people were facing death sentences. According to Amnesty International, close to three-quarters of the world’s countries had abolished the death penalty in law or practice. In 2025, 2,707 executions were recorded worldwide, with executions carried out in 17 countries

Iraq: Government Must Chart a New Course by Ending Impunity and Upholding Human Rights. Amnesty International, 17 August 2026. Three months after the launch of Iraq’s 2026–2029 Ministerial Programme, Amnesty International reports little progress on commitments to strengthen human rights, empower women, and bolster independent civil society. Survivors of violence against women and girls are left with little redress and protection, while draft domestic violence legislation remains stalled and amendments to the Personal Status Code continue to undermine the equality of women and girls before the law. Human rights defenders, journalists, activists, and peaceful protesters continue to face intimidation, judicial harassment, physical violence, unlawful force, and detention. In prisons across Iraq overcrowding, inadequate sanitation, and a lack of access to healthcare contribute to cruel and inhuman conditions, while thousands of people, primarily convicted of terrorism-related offences, remain at risk of execution. Amnesty International also calls for truth, justice, and adequate reparations for victims of enforced disappearance and their families.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Data Rights

Dilemmas of Humanitarian Geospatial Artificial Intelligence. Melinda Laituri, Academia AI and Applications, 12 August 2026. Humanitarianism is increasingly shaped by the convergence of environmental change, conflict, urbanization, displacement, and public health emergencies. At the same time, advances in geospatial artificial intelligence (GeoAI) are transforming the collection, analysis, and application of geospatial information for humanitarian responses. This paper presents a SALSA-based (Search, Appraisal, Synthesis, Analysis) integrative review examining the intersections of GeoAI, humanitarian action, environmental justice, infrastructure, and governance. Eighty publications, including twelve comprehensive review articles, were examined to identify major research themes, applications, and emerging challenges. The review demonstrates that Humanitarian GeoAI extends beyond technical innovation to encompass interconnected dimensions of infrastructure, analytical methods, humanitarian applications, and environmental justice, ethics, and governance. These findings are synthesized into a conceptual framework illustrating how geospatial infrastructures enable GeoAI methods, which support humanitarian applications and generate outcomes requiring ethical oversight and governance. The analysis identifies two cross-cutting challenges: the humanitarian–military dual-use dilemma, in which shared data, infrastructures, and analytical systems support both humanitarian and military objectives, and the privacy–safety dilemma, where efforts to protect vulnerable populations may simultaneously increase exposure to surveillance and harm. Future advances in autonomous GIS, generative artificial intelligence, and digital twins are likely to further reshape humanitarian practice. This review demonstrates that the future of Humanitarian GeoAI depends not only on technological innovation but also on governance frameworks capable of promoting environmental justice, accountability, and the protection of vulnerable populations.

Could AI Become Conscious? Even If They Don’t, They Might Be Treated as Such, to Humanity’s Great Cost. The Economist, 20 August 2026. This article examines whether artificial intelligence could become conscious and how increasingly human-like AI systems may be treated as conscious even if they are not. It describes growing emotional attachment to chatbots and considers how perceptions of AI as having inner lives could lead to calls for AI welfare, legal personhood, and rights. The article argues that granting AI rights, including protection against being switched off and control over how systems are used or modified, could provide increasingly powerful AI systems with the legal and political means to challenge human control and compete with humans for resources.

Children, Youth, Families

Ukraine: Russian-Run Schools Violate Children’s Rights. Human Rights Watch, 16 July 2026. Human Rights Watch reports that Russian authorities in occupied Ukrainian territories are forcing Ukrainian children into a school system that suppresses Ukrainian identity, excludes Ukrainian-language instruction, promotes anti-Ukraine propaganda and militarized education, and restricts access to Ukrainian schooling. Children, parents, and psychologists described surveillance, threats, home searches, and punishment connected to Ukrainian education. Psychologists reported anxiety, trauma, fear of surveillance, and stress-related conditions among children from occupied territories. Children reaching Ukrainian-controlled territory may also need remedial education, Ukrainian-language support, psychological care, and assistance with reintegration.

A Framework for Global Child and Adolescent Mental Health (GC-CAMH) Curriculum: Why the World Cannot Wait. Ramya Mohan et al., Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health, 6 June 2026.Children and adolescents face unprecedented escalating convergence of adversity today. Climate change, war/conflict, forced displacement, economic/political instability, digital pressures, social media, sociodemographic inequalities, parental stress, reconfigured societies and COVID-19 have created more homogeneously hazardous adverse childhood environments. They compound individual, familial and societal risks of early/cumulative exposure to childhood adversity, consistently amongst the strongest predictors of later-life mental disorder in a dose-dependent manner across populations. Yet, the world is without a unified professional, community-focussed, locally adaptable curriculum framework for global child and adolescent mental health (GC-CAMH). Existing training programmes remain adult-focused, narrow in scope or region- specific. Essential competencies in ethics, confidentiality, advocacy, systems-based care, humanitarian responsiveness, cultural sensitivities, intra/inter-community engagement and interprofessional collaboration are variable. A recent review of 117 Psychiatry curriculum publications (2010–2025) identified only two that described themselves as global in scope, with no unified CAMH curriculum. Psychiatric training frameworks prioritise adult models, while developmental psychiatry remains fragmented/variable. This disparity is more than an academic gap. It represents structural, qualitative and functional vulnerabilities in global mental health architecture. Without globally informed, locally coherent training, we remain ill-equipped to respond effectively or quickly to dynamic, cumulative adversities.

 Türkiye’s Changes to Child Detention ‘Raise Serious Human Rights Concerns’. UN News, 13 August 2026. UN human rights chief Volker Türk raised concerns over amendments to Türkiye’s Child Protection Law that increase sentences for offenders aged 15 to 18, allow judges to decline age-based sentence reductions for certain serious crimes, and mandate detention in closed juvenile institutions rather than education centres focused on rehabilitation. The amendments could allow child offenders convicted of serious crimes to receive life sentences. Türk emphasized that juvenile justice systems should combine accountability with rehabilitation, individualised support, and opportunities for reintegration into society. Lengthy detention measures for children were described as contrary to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which provides that the detention or imprisonment of a child should be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period.

Climate Justice

Civil Society Advocacy and Climate Change in Kenya: The Question of “Local Voices” and Their “Amplification.” Margit van Wessel & Precious Akampurira, Environmental Policy and Governance, 10 August 2026. The role of civil society organizations (CSOs) in addressing climate change is acknowledged, but engagement with questions of voice remains limited, especially in the Global South. Addressing this, this paper zooms in on (International) nongovernmental organizations ((I)NGOs) and their collaborations with domestic CSOs in the Global South on this front. (I)NGOs often sum up their role here as “amplification of voices,” which foregrounds communities articulating their perspectives and agendas, with domestic CSOs and (I)NGOs supporting and facilitating. However, this raises questions about where “voices” come from and how to understand their “amplification”. Based on qualitative research in Kenya, this paper examines how CSOs in Kenya working on amplification of voices on climate change relate to the populations they work with, and what these relationships reveal about what amplification of voices entails in practice for CSOs working on climate change in a setting in the Global South where climate change impacts are directly experienced. Key findings are, first: CSOs centered local settings and local people, but co-created voices rather than amplifying existing ones. Second, they also co-created arenas and processes in which voices were to be heard and promoted state actors’ receptiveness to them. Third, the nature of the focus on the local kept voices circumscribed to immediately experienced climate change impacts and solutions conceived as projects that mitigate them, with little engagement with larger issues. The findings indicate that the notion of amplification as strengthening authentic existing voices of marginalized groups, while justly foregrounding lived experience and people’s priorities, may not do justice to what happens. While providing legitimate CSO roles in facilitation of, and support for, “the local,” the notion of amplification, when used in a straightforward manner, hides the multidimensionality of CSO roles, fails to recognize how local voices are embedded in webs of power and politics, and discourages CSO roles in building larger movements that can engage complex issues.

Why Environmental Treaties Must Also Address Mental Health. Manasi Kumar et al., Nature, 10 August 2026. Global environmental treaties and international policy instruments have largely treated mental health and the environment as separate domains, despite the psychological and social impacts of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. The authors argue that environmental treaties should be recognized as upstream policy instruments that can shape mental health and psychosocial well-being before clinical intervention is needed. The authors call for shared indicators, financing incentives, implementation guidance, and accountability mechanisms that connect environmental governance with the prevention of mental-health conditions. The article proposes a tiered policy framework that differentiates environmental conventions according to their relevance to mental health and their readiness for indicator-based evaluation.

Climate Anxiety in Early Childhood: Mental Health, Displacement and Affective Injustice in International and European Climate Governance. Jane Spiteri. Children & Society, 2026. Climate anxiety in early childhood is an under-recognised concern within global climate governance, despite the heightened vulnerability of children under eight to environmental disruption. This study critically examines how international and European governance frameworks address the emotional well-being of young children affected by climate-induced displacement, focussing on policy recognition of climate anxiety, the integration of developmentally appropriate and trauma-informed supports, and the conceptualisation and enactment of children’s participatory rights. Drawing on neurodevelopmental research, affective climate violence, developmental and attachment theory, critical childhood studies and children’s rights, this article conceptualises climate anxiety as affective dysregulation rooted in chronic environmental instability, displacement and toxic stress during critical developmental periods, currently underserved by international and European policies. Using a two-stage qualitative methodology, it analyses 38 international and European policies through qualitative content analysis and critical discourse analysis. Findings reveal a lack of developmentally appropriate psychosocial responses; the exclusion of young children’s affective lives from participation and protection mechanisms; and fragmented governance across climate, mental health and migration sectors. The article concludes with trauma-informed, developmentally attuned policy recommendations grounded in affective climate justice, advocating for the emotional wellbeing of young children as a core component of climate resilience.

Before They Can Name Ecological Grief: A Brief Research Report of Young Children’s Climate Emotions in a Small Island State. Jane Spiteri. Frontiers in Conservation Science, 6 August 2026. Climate emotions research is expanding rapidly, yet children under eight remain less visible than adolescents and adults within the field despite evidence that climate concern may emerge early in life. Such an omission is especially consequential in small island states that are more vulnerable to climate change. This Brief Research Report presents a secondary qualitative analysis of empirical studies conducted in Malta with young children, parents and early childhood educators. Re-examining these datasets through the lens of climate emotions, the analysis shows that young children express early forms of climate worry and ecological loss through concrete, place-based concerns about heat, pollution, animals, the sea and damaged environments, even without adult terminology. Parents and educators recognise climate risks but often struggle to communicate them in emotionally safe ways. The findings conceptualise climate emotions in early childhood as an emergent, relational and co-constructed experience shaped by place attachment, intergenerational communication and opportunities for care-based action. The report further suggests that children’s climate emotions are socially mediated through family, educational and peer contexts. Finally, it argues that conservation social science must integrate young children’s emotional responses to ecological loss, particularly in small island contexts where the impacts of climate change are more pronounced and encountered intimately and daily.

A Look Back at ‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ 20 Years Later. Dana Nuccitelli, Yale Climate Connections, 8 May 2026. Twenty years after the release of An Inconvenient Truth, Dana Nuccitelli revisits the documentary’s climate science and finds that its scientific overview was imperfect but predominantly accurate. The article examines how its descriptions of rising carbon dioxide levels, shrinking glaciers, extreme weather, sea-level rise, and human-caused climate change have held up over the past two decades. While climate impacts have continued to worsen alongside rising global temperatures, international agreements, domestic climate policies, and accelerating deployment of clean technologies have begun to bend the emissions curve downward.

 Coping with 54C Heat: Delhi Slum Diaries Detail Living in Extreme Temperatures. Suchitra, The Guardian, 17 August 2026. Forty households in Sunder Nagri, a low-income community in north-east Delhi, are documenting their experiences of increasingly long and frequent heatwaves through heat diaries recording daily routines, work, home life, mood, and family experiences. Community heat mapping has recorded ground temperatures above 54°C in some streets, while residents report effects on health, sleep, work, and household costs. The diaries document how extreme heat affects daily life in one of Delhi’s vulnerable communities and have been submitted to India’s National Human Rights Commission.

Crimes Against Humanity

 Macron says France must address issue of reparations for its role in slave trade. Angelique Chrisafis, The Guardian, 21 May 2026. French President Emmanuel Macron stated that France must address the issue of reparations for its role in the enslavement of African people while acknowledging that the issue requires careful consideration rather than unrealistic promises. He announced that France and Ghana will jointly launch an international scientific research project to develop recommendations for addressing the legacies of slavery and emphasized the importance of confronting France’s history through honesty, dialogue, and historical truth.

 Ghana Conference Calls for Formal Apology for Transatlantic Slave Trade. Carlos Mureithi, The Guardian, 19 June 2026. A global framework for reparatory justice has been adopted at a conference in Ghana, as African and Caribbean leaders demanded formal apologies from countries that benefited from the transatlantic slave trade. Heads of state and government and other officials formally approved the strategy on Friday at a gathering in a hotel in the capital, Accra, which was the first major meeting since the adoption of the landmark United Nations (UN) resolution declaring the trafficking of enslaved Africans as the gravest crime against humanity. The document lays out a 19-point global framework for reparatory justice. They include a call for “all state and non-state institutions yet to do so” to “offer full, formal and unconditional apologies as a foundational step towards reconciliation, trust-building and reparatory justice”. It also includes resolving to ensure fair and adequate compensation for Africans and people of African descent affected by legacies of enslavement, colonialism, genocide and apartheid, and to expedite the return of cultural property, human remains, archives and heritage to their countries of origin.

  Rights Groups Sue Trump Administration Over Targeting ICC. Human Rights Watch, 11 August 2026. Four human rights groups, the American Friends Service Committee, Center for Constitutional Rights, Human Rights Watch, and Open Society Institute, filed a lawsuit in US federal court challenging sanctions against International Criminal Court prosecutors and judges, a UN human rights expert, and three Palestinian human rights groups. The groups assert that the sanctions infringe their constitutional rights and violate US law and US obligations under international law. The sanctions have restricted activities including representing victims of war crimes, making legal and policy submissions to the ICC, conducting human rights research, coordinating advocacy, and providing humanitarian aid. The groups state that the sanctions undermine access to justice for victims of serious international crimes and prevent civil society organizations from working together to combat impunity.

 Lebanon Abolishes Death Penalty, but Justice System Remains Flawed. Laure Stephan, Le Monde, 12 August 2026. On Tuesday, a majority in the Chamber of Deputies voted to abolish the death penalty, bringing to an end a struggle led by civil society activists since the 1990s. While Lebanon has not carried out any executions since 2004, 85 people were on death row. Nizar Saghieh, lawyer and director of the legal NGO The Legal Agenda, remembered the time he took part in a "protest sit-in with a handful of civil society activists, at night; outside Roumieh Central Prison, north of Beirut, just hours before three people condemned to death were scheduled to be executed, on January 17, 2004. Despite their efforts, the protest did not change the outcome. Nevertheless, that day marked the last time the death penalty was carried out in Lebanon. After a 22-year moratorium, a majority of lawmakers in the Chamber of Deputies voted to abolish the death penalty on Tuesday, August 11.

Democracy

Thinking about: Hitler and Stalin Today. Timothy Snyder, Substack, July 15, 2026. Hitler and Stalin Today is a publicly available ten-lecture course taught at the University of Toronto for students, researchers, and anyone interested in understanding the relationship between history and contemporary democracy. The course examines Nazi and Soviet responses to the new globalized world they shared, beginning with the colonial background that made totalitarianism possible. The lectures consider their ideologies as worldviews and practical politics, with an emphasis on the reasons for their appeal, and examine policies of mass killing as essential events of twentieth-century history. The study of dissident thought considers connections between historical predicaments and those of the present, as well as possible reactions as individuals and citizens.

Displaced/ Migrants/ Refugees/ Stateless

Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh should be allowed to work. Zinnatul Borak, Shamsul Haque. The Lancet Psychiatry, August 2026. Bangladesh hosts approximately 1.2 million Rohingya refugees forcibly displaced from Rakhine State, Myanmar, many of whom experience symptoms of mental ill health because of premigration trauma and current daily stressors. Rohingya refugees cannot work legally in Bangladesh and depend on international humanitarian aid, while funding shortfalls have reduced access to health care and nutrition services. The authors identify economic opportunity as an important protective factor for refugee mental health and cite evidence linking employment with improved psychosocial wellbeing among Rohingya refugees. They urge the Bangladesh Government to allow Rohingya refugees to work legally and recommend employment opportunities, vocational training, and locally trained community mental health workers to provide psychosocial and mental health services.

The Impact of Immigration Detention on Mental Health: An Updated Systematic Review. Reem Khalid Saifeldeen et al., BMC Psychiatry, 16 May 2026. Background: The number of refugees and people seeking asylum worldwide has risen significantly over the past 10 years. These individuals are often placed in immigration detention facilities following their migration journey. Previous studies, including a systematic review conducted in 2018, indicate that detention may be associated with an increase in mental health difficulties. The present review aimed to update the 2018 review by reporting on more recent studies investigating the prevalence of mental disorders and symptoms in immigration detainees, and whether the length of detention increases the likelihood of such disorders. Methods: Six databases were searched for quantitative, peer-reviewed studies reporting on the prevalence of psychiatric symptoms or disorders in adults and children who had experienced immigration detention. The quality of included studies was assessed using the Joanna Briggs Institute Critical Appraisal Checklist for Studies Reporting Prevalence Data. The findings were presented narratively. Results: Fourteen studies were included, reporting on a total of 2777 participants. The prevalence of significant mental health problems was high in both adults and children subjected to immigration detention. The most common disorders reported were post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, and depression. Children also experienced high levels of emotional dysregulation and behavioural symptoms. In adults, longer durations of detention were consistently associated with a higher likelihood of experiencing mental health difficulties. Factors related to detention environments were also associated with the prevalence of psychological symptoms and diagnosable mental health conditions. Conclusions: Overall, this review confirms that immigration detention has negative mental health consequences across a variety of immigration detention facilities and detainee characteristics. Recommendations based on findings are presented, including eliminating child detention, imposing upper limits to the duration of adult detention, improving mental health screening pre-detention, and providing evidence-based psychological care during detention.

Refugee mental health and clinical practice: Lessons from the Sanctuary Model. Aula Meki & Alan Kessedjian (2026). Clinical Psychology Forum, 1(1), 12–16. https://doi.org/10.53841/bpscpf.2026.1.398.12 This reflective article outlines the development of the Sanctuary Model for refugee mental health care. It discusses clinical learning in assessment, therapy adaptations, interpreter use, and reflective practice, while situating these within the wider hostile environment for refugees. Although the full model has not yet been piloted due to funding constraints, its development provides important insights for clinical psychology practice and highlights the systemic barriers shaping care. The paper emphasises values of dignity, justice, compassion, and co-production, offering timely reflections for practitioners working in refugee contexts.

The Double-Edged Sword of Scapegoration: How Anti-Immigrant Hostility Harms Both Immigrants and Host Societies. Changiz Mohiyeddini, Frontiers in Psychology, 20 August 2026. Immigration is among the most consequential social phenomena of the 21st century, yet the psychological dimensions of anti-immigrant hostility—particularly its bidirectional harms—remain insufficiently theorized. This paper introduces and defines the concept of scapegoration, a portmanteau of scapegoating and immigration, to describe the systematic attribution of structural societal failures to immigrant populations as a means of deflecting responsibility from institutional and political actors. Unlike xenophobia, which denotes generalized fear or hostility toward foreigners, scapegoration captures a specific politico-psychological process in which immigrants are instrumentally constructed as causal agents of pre-existing social problems. Building upon Albert Memmi’s (1957) framework in The Colonizer and the Colonized and integrating Integrated Threat Theory, Social Identity Theory, moral disengagement theory, and the concept of crimmigration, this paper argues that the criminalization and scapegoating of immigrants inflict psychological harm on both migrants and host populations. The analysis operates across individual, group, institutional, and societal levels to demonstrate how scapegoration functions as a self-perpetuating system of exclusion and dehumanization. Drawing on clinical psychology, sociology, political theory, and critical migration studies, the paper examines how host societies develop moral hypocrisy, epistemic distortion (the systematic misrepresentation or misattribution of social reality through politically reinforced narratives), and cultural paranoia (persistent and exaggerated beliefs that cultural identity is under existential threat from immigrant populations), while immigrants experience trauma, exploitation, intergenerational harm, and identity disruption. The paper concludes with an integrated multilevel framework for counter-scapegoration interventions encompassing policy reform, narrative change, and structural inclusion.

From Exile to Medal: Psychosocial Wellbeing, Belonging, and Global Solidarity in the Refugee Olympic Team Through an ACTM Perspective. Kadir Caliskan, Sabiha Gizem Engin, and Tugce Orsoglu, Frontiers in Psychology, 1 July 2026. Background: This study examines the Refugee Olympic Team (ROT) within the broader context of the modern Olympic Games and the global refugee crisis. While the initiative is frequently framed as a symbol of hope and global solidarity, its broader psychosocial and institutional implications remain underexplored. Methods: Using an interpretivist qualitative research design, the study conducted qualitative document analysis and thematic analysis of 26 institutional documents, United Nations reports, and international media sources published between 2009 and 2025. The analysis was guided by the Athletic Career Transition Model (ACTM). Results: The findings show that the ROT provides meaningful symbolic recognition and transition resources by fostering visibility, belonging, hope, and resilience among displaced athletes. However, the analysis also reveals that institutional and media representations frequently construct refugee athletes as exceptional “model migrants,” thereby reinforcing selective inclusion, conditional acceptance, and pressure to perform as idealised symbols of refugee success. Conclusion: The study highlights the dual character of the Refugee Olympic Team as both a supportive transition space aligned with Sustainable Development Goal 16 and a politically mediated initiative shaped by institutional narratives, structural constraints, and asymmetrical power relations. By integrating ACTM with critical sport-for-development perspectives, this article contributes to scholarship on sport, forced migration, and psychosocial well-being while offering a more explicit psychological interpretation of refugee athletes’ adjustment, coping, and career transition experiences.

American Psychology-  Law Society Policy Statement on Immigration Detention. Psychology-Law Society (AP-LS), August 2026. The American Psychology-Law Society (AP-LS) has significant concerns regarding the expansion of immigration detention in the United States, including rising numbers of detained children. A substantial body of research demonstrates that immigration detention is associated with significant and often lasting mental health harm, including depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress. Furthermore, recent reports and investigations document systemic deficiencies in care, the overuse of segregation, credible allegations of abuse and neglect, and an increasing number of deaths in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention. In light of this evidence, AP-LS calls for reducing reliance on detention, prioritizing community-based alternatives, improving access to mental health care, strengthening oversight and accountability, and implementing reforms to reduce prolonged detention. These recommendations are grounded in psychological science and align with AP-LS’s commitment to enhancing well-being, justice, and human rights. To read the entire APA Division 41 statement, click here.

Education

From Exclusion to Engagement: Advancing Student Success in Environmental Science. W. Anthony Frankino, Academia Environmental Sciences and Sustainability, 30 April 2026. Numerous well-documented contextual and structural barriers exclude undergraduates from some populations, contributing to their status as underrepresented minorities in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines. In addition to these barriers, environmental science presents challenges that can further exclude students from some populations. This paper reviews related categories of exclusionary barriers and outlines solutions based on the literature and the author’s experience running student success programs. This study emphasizes the challenges and rewards offered by fieldwork, which is fundamental for attraction, retention, and success of students across many facets of environmental science. Transformative impacts on students and, over time, on the culture of institutions themselves can be made if programming is provided in a scaffolded, integrated manner and includes (i) active recruiting into preparatory coursework to prepare undergraduates for research experiences; (ii) individual or group-based undergraduate research experiences with faculty trained in sustaining practices centered on students’ individual backgrounds, situations, and goals; and (iii) transition support for students to move toward their next steps.

Liberia Ends Primary School Registration Fees. Jo Becker, Human Rights Watch, 7 August 2026. Liberia’s government announced the elimination of school registration fees from kindergarten through grade 6, beginning with the new school year on 7 September. A recent Human Rights Watch report found that registration fees placed schooling out of reach or imposed severe hardship, particularly for low-income and rural families. Fees forced some children out of school, while others started years late, attended irregularly, or engaged in child labor to help pay the fees. One-third of Liberian children have never attended school, and only 17 percent completed grade 9. 

Inclusion, Exclusion, Racism

‘Get me another nurse!’: Nurses’ perspectives on identity-based care refusals, discrimination, and institutional support. Naoual El Yattouti, et al., International Journal of Discrimination and the Law, 2026. When patient preferences for a certain healthcare provider are based on identity traits such as gender, skin colour, ethnicity, or religion, the right to free choice of healthcare provider may come into tension with the provider’s right to equal treatment. This qualitative study explores the complex experiences of nurses when confronted with these types of patient requests. It investigates how and when nurses recognise such requests as discriminatory or unjust, and whether they choose to report or address them. Drawing on in-depth interviews, the research examines nurses’ attitudes and responses, including how they differentiate between types of requests, interpret patients’ motivations, and consider contextual factors. The study also explores nurses’ perspectives on institutional policies in managing these situations by analysing how they navigate and interpret institutional guidelines, through a ‘naming, blaming, and claiming’ framework. The findings aim to inform policymakers to develop and promote more equitable and inclusive healthcare practices..

LGBTQI+, Gender Rights

Factors Affecting the Mental Health of the LGBTQ+ Population in Greece. Anastasios Charalampakis et al., Frontiers in Psychology, 15 May 2026. This study examined factors affecting mental health among LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+ adults in Greece. LGBTQ+ participants reported higher perceived stress, psychological distress, and depressive symptoms than non-LGBTQ+ participants. Structural stigma was associated with greater distress, with patterns varying across subgroups. The findings support stigma-informed public mental health interventions and policies that reduce structural barriers and strengthen protective resources for sexual and gender minorities.

The power of protective factors to mitigate LGBTQ+ suicide risk: Improving positive aspects of one’s identity in a vacuum is not enough. Vaughan, Colette R. Liotta, Lucy Benau, Erik M., American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 2026. The goal of the present study was to determine whether positive components of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, and related (LGBTQ+) identity mitigate suicide risk. A sample of 260 LGBTQ+ participants completed assessments of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), positive LGBTQ+ identity (authenticity, community, self-awareness, intimacy, social justice), outness, and self-acceptance of sexuality. Bivariate analyses indicated that ACEs were positively associated with both suicidal ideation (SI) and suicide attempts (SA). Authenticity was negatively correlated with SI, whereas a sense of community negatively correlated with SA. A multinomial logistic regression was conducted with all variables of interest entered as independent variables and suicide continuum group as the dependent variable (SI, SA, and no history of SI or SA). Compared to those with no history, individuals in the SI group reported greater ACEs and psychosocial distress. Compared to the SI group, the SA group reported significantly greater ACEs (but not distress) and a lower sense of community. Surprisingly, they also reported greater authenticity. Adding the interaction term between community and authenticity significantly improved model fit. Examination of the interaction slopes indicated that the odds of reporting an SA decreased as both authenticity and community increased. These findings suggest that fostering a sense of community may mitigate suicide risk for LGBTQ+ individuals and that authenticity in the absence of community support may increase this risk. LGBTQ+ community engagement is likely an important avenue for suicide prevention efforts. Additional findings pertaining to social desirability are also discussed.

Mental Health and Human Rights

Safeguarding Physical and Mental Health Rights in African Conflict Regions: Ethical Responsibilities, Barriers, and Collaborative Efforts. Adebayo E. Obasa, Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, 2026. Armed conflicts in Africa disrupt physical and mental healthcare, yet ethical frameworks guiding interventions remain underdeveloped and rarely grounded in local political, cultural, and global realities. Mental health, chronically underfunded, is further devastated by conflict. This paper advances a human rights ethics approach to safeguarding health rights. Integrating Martha Nussbaum’s capabilities approach, John Rawls’s difference principle, and the African value of ubuntu, it focuses on mental health while assigning responsibilities to global actors whose economic policies fuel conflict. It reframes destruction of health infrastructure, cultural stigma, and weak accountability as violations of dignity and justice, not logistical challenges. Subsidiarity assigns primary responsibility to local actors; international actors bear a duty of solidarity, including addressing upstream conflict drivers. Restoring mental health services empowers individuals and communities—agency is central to healing. Short-term actions include integrating mental health into emergency responses, scaling community-based care, and launching culturally grounded anti-stigma campaigns. Long-term, resilient health systems and accountability, through the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights and targeted international measures that avoid civilian harm—can hold violators responsible, even governments. Grounded in a coherent, locally situated human rights ethics, even fragile settings can advance the right to health, affirming dignity and solidarity as non-negotiable in war.

Mental Health in Conflict and Post-Conflict Settings: An Analysis of UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies’ Concluding Observations. Giulia Bosi, International Review of the Red Cross, 2026. The continued applicability of international human rights law in situations of armed conflict entails that the right to mental health also applies. It is therefore crucial to examine how human rights supervisory mechanisms engage with this right in such contexts. Building on this premise, the present paper investigates how United Nations treaty bodies address mental health in conflict and post-conflict settings in their Concluding Observations. The study is based on a textual analysis of these documents conducted through the Universal Human Rights Index database. The findings reveal that most recommendations contained in the Concluding Observations call for particular attention to the mental health of children, especially child combatants, and of women, particularly those who are victims of sexual and gender-based violence. In terms of action required, they emphasize the need to ensure the availability and accessibility of mental health and psychosocial support services to persons affected by conflict.

Peace, Violence and War 

Armed Conflict and Cholera Outbreaks: A Narrative Review of Epidemiology, Challenges, and Responses. Sayed Abdul Qadar Quadri, Academia Medicine and Health, 13 February 2026. Background: Cholera remains a significant global public health threat, with its burden disproportionately affecting regions experiencing humanitarian crises. Armed conflict, through the disruption of infrastructure and governance, creates ideal conditions for cholera transmission. This narrative review synthesizes evidence on the epidemiological patterns, underlying challenges, and response strategies of cholera outbreaks in conflict settings. Methods: A systematic search was conducted across PubMed, WHO IRIS, EM-DAT, ReliefWeb, and Google Scholar for studies published from 1990 to the present. Studies were included if they discussed cholera outbreaks in the context of armed conflict, detailed epidemiological patterns, or described outbreak responses. A six-step thematic analysis was employed to identify and synthesize key themes from the included literature. Results: Thirty-six studies were included. The analysis identified six interrelated themes: (1) the breakdown of public health infrastructure; (2) acute vulnerabilities in refugee and internally displaced person (IDP) camps due to overcrowding and poor WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene); (3) the role of political instability and the weaponization of health infrastructure; (4) critical delays in surveillance and response; (5) the influence of environmental factors; and (6) the challenges of coordinating interventions. Findings from countries like Yemen, Sudan, and Syria demonstrate that conflict is a primary catalyst for outbreaks, leading to recurrent epidemic waves and protracting crises. Response efforts are often hampered by aid obstruction, politicization, and a reactive focus on case management over prevention. Conclusions: Cholera outbreaks in conflict zones are not incidental but are direct and predictable consequences of war. Effective control requires an integrated approach that combines rapid deployment of oral cholera vaccines (OCVs) with sustainable WASH interventions. However, long-term solutions depend on rebuilding infrastructure, ensuring neutral humanitarian access, and strengthening local health systems. Ultimately, addressing cholera in conflict is as much a political challenge as a public health one, necessitating greater accountability and adherence to international humanitarian law

Beyond the Absence of War: Psychology, Meaning, and the Human Foundations of Peace. Élison Santos, International Council of Psychologists, 9 June 2026. Lasting peace requires understanding the human conditions that make cooperation, dialogue, and mutual respect possible. Psychological science contributes to understanding prejudice, aggression, group conflict, trauma, reconciliation, polarization, social fragmentation, and distrust, as well as how trust develops, social identities influence behaviour, and communities recover following trauma and conflict. Peace is presented as an ongoing process that requires spaces for dialogue, understanding, responsibility, and cooperation, alongside stronger connections across families, communities, cultures, and nations. Psychological science diplomacy reflects this approach by using psychological knowledge and scientific collaboration to build connections between people, communities, and nations.

 Human Rights Watch Expresses Alarm Over Escalating Settler Violence on West Bank. Samara Baboolal, JURIST, 22 August 2026. Human Rights Watch warned that escalating settler violence and settler expansion in the occupied West Bank are driving the displacement of Palestinians. Investigations conducted in seven Palestinian communities documented killings, including of children, as well as assaults, sexual violence, physical and mental abuse, arbitrary detention, arson, property destruction, and theft. HRW reported that armed settlers at times acted alongside Israeli army units and that soldiers were present during instances of settler violence but failed to intervene. The organization urged the international community to impose targeted sanctions on those complicit in supporting settler violence, suspend arms transfers to Israel, ban trade with illegal settlements, and consider suspending preferential trade agreements with Israel. 

Still Waiting for Peace in Gaza. Katrin Bennhold, NY Times, August 9, 2026. Gazan photojournalist Saher Alghorra describes the displacement and danger that have come to define life in his home and the challenges of working as a journalist in Gaza. Alghorra and his family have been displaced from their home six times since October 7. During the war, many of his colleagues were killed, while frequent blackouts, limited internet access, and scarce and expensive fuel have made reporting difficult. Alongside responsibility for the safety of his family, Alghorra describes a responsibility to tell the world the story of his home, bear witness, and give voice to the voiceless.

Persons with Disabilities

An Armenian Case Study in Why Regaining Legal Capacity Alone Is Not Enough. Anahit Chilingaryan, Human Rights Watch, 3 August 2026. This article examines legal capacity and institutionalization in Armenia through the experience of Gayane, who regained legal capacity in 2023 after nearly 30 years in psychiatric hospitals, social care institutions, and a group home. It describes Armenia’s continued reliance on guardianship and substitute decision-making, barriers to restoring legal capacity, and the absence of supported decision-making mechanisms and adequate support for people with psychosocial and intellectual disabilities living independently in the community.

Advancing health-care access to optimise health and quality of life for children and young people with Down syndrome worldwide. Tracey Smythe, Maureen Moyo-Chilufya, et. al., The Lancet Child Adolescent Health. September 2026. This Series paper describes the health inequities faced by children and young people with Down syndrome, and how health systems can be strengthened to meet these needs. Meta-analyses have shown that children and young people with Down syndrome face frequent health challenges, including, but not exclusively, increased rates of respiratory infections and poorer cancer outcomes. Important evidence gaps remain in the health needs and trajectories for children and young people with Down syndrome, despite this period of early life being a crucial period for intervention and development. Inclusive and accessible health systems are vital for children and young people with Down syndrome, and their families, to support good health and good health-care access. Yet, current health systems are failing to meet these needs. Families experience fragmented and uncoordinated care, and gaps in availability of essential services. Barriers, such as stigma, lack of knowledge and false assumptions, and diagnostic overshadowing, further limit the quality of care. Consequently, health systems are failing to maximise health and development for children and young people with Down syndrome. Core ways in which health systems should be optimised to better meet their needs include the accommodation of co-occurring conditions and broad-ranging functioning profiles, and provision of coordinated multidisciplinary care across paediatric and young adult years. Crucially, health-care providers must work more closely with children and young people with Down syndrome and their families, and offer connected and respectful care.

Strengthening health-care pathways for people with Down syndrome. Katie Greenland PhD, Arthemon Nguweneza PhD et al., The Lancet Healthy Longevity, 6, June 2026. People with Down syndrome are living longer than ever before because of improved management of concomitant health conditions. However, they continue to experience health inequalities across the life course, and health systems remain poorly equipped to meet the evolving and complex needs of adults with Down syndrome. Fragmented services, diagnostic overshadowing, absence of reasonable adjustments, and insufficient professional training about disability undermine health access, quality, outcomes, and autonomy. Families and caregivers of people with Down syndrome often bear a high burden of care, with inadequate support from health systems. This Review presents evidence that many of the health gaps encountered by adults with Down syndrome are avoidable through improvements in health systems. We propose practical, life-course principles for health-care professionals to strengthen health-care pathways for people with Down syndrome, informed by lived experience, policy guidance, and case studies. Promising practices include structured health-care transition from paediatric to adult care services, annual health checks, inclusive healthy lifestyle and rehabilitation programmes, workforce training, and supported decision-making approaches. Inclusive and adapted approaches are also required in specific specialities, such as sexual and reproductive health care, dementia care, and end-of-life planning, to meet the needs of people with Down syndrome. Strengthening health-care pathways to deliver person-centred, rights-based care for adults with Down syndrome is essential to optimise their health, wellbeing, and quality of life across the life course.

Women

Americas: Regional Conference on Population and Development Must Uphold International Commitments on Gender Equality. Amnesty International, 16 August 2026. Representatives from Latin American and Caribbean states met in Montevideo, Uruguay, from 18 to 20 August 2026 for the sixth session of the Regional Conference on Population and Development, which follows up on the Montevideo Consensus. Across the region, public policies related to sexual and reproductive rights, including comprehensive sexuality education, access to contraception, information on sexual and reproductive health, and access to legal abortion, have faced increasing restrictions. These measures disproportionately affect adolescent girls and migrant women. Girls who are victims of sexual violence face barriers to information, comprehensive care, justice and reparations, as well as stigmatization, educational barriers, and impacts on their physical and mental health. Feminist organizations, women searching for disappeared persons, women human rights defenders, and civil society organizations have also faced increasing restrictions and attacks in carrying out their work. Women defenders face gender-specific risks, including threats, surveillance, criminalization, smear campaigns, and attacks on their reputation and legitimacy to participate in public debate.

Women are treated horribly in Afghanistan—and in many other places. Sarah Little, The Economist, 13 August 2026. Sarah Little examines the oppression of women and girls as a continuum across countries, cultures, religions, and political systems. The author presents Afghanistan under Taliban rule as the farthest end of that continuum, where women and girls face extensive restrictions on education, employment, public life, and personal autonomy, while drawing attention to less visible restrictions affecting women elsewhere. The article examines male guardianship laws, restrictions on freedom of movement and reproductive rights, gender-based violence, and female genital mutilation. Little argues that while the Taliban’s treatment of women should be regarded as a global moral emergency, greater attention should also be paid to the laws, customs, and systems limiting the lives of hundreds of millions of women and girls whose experiences rarely make global headlines.

The Forgotten 20 Million: Why Is the World Neglecting Afghanistan’s Girls and Women? Nature, 11 August 2026. Five years after the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan, the rights of women and girls continue to deteriorate, particularly in education and employment. Around 2.4 million girls have been excluded from secondary education and more than 100,000 young women have been unable to access higher education, while restrictions have also affected women researchers and academics. The editorial calls on the international community to maintain pressure on the Taliban and expand opportunities for Afghan women and girls to study abroad and through online education. It highlights initiatives providing access to literacy programmes, university courses, and other educational opportunities, while warning that these efforts remain limited compared with the scale of exclusion.

OPPORTUNITIES
Resources/Publications/Podcasts/Webinars/ Events

Resources

In the project, Realizing Human Rights and Social Justice in Mental Health. This international initiative gathers information about the lived experiences of coercion and discrimination in mental health care and highlights services and practices that are more equitable, based on user-led, social justice, human rights, and intersectional approaches. Through collaboration with organizations led by people with lived experience, the initiative works to bring mental health policy in Canada, Australia, and Kenya into alignment with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) human rights framework. It applies critical mental health perspectives and intersectional, social justice, and human rights frameworks to research on mental health policy and practice.

Good Good Good. An independent media organization covering positive news and resources focused on constructive responses to social and global challenges. Its journalists report on positive developments and create practical resources for making a difference, with coverage spanning areas including mental health, climate change, racial justice, education, activism, and other social issues. Good Good Good publishes daily stories and resources online, as well as the Goodnewspaper, a daily newsletter, and a podcast.  

Publications

Censorship of History. Antoon De Baets, Cambridge Elements in Historical Theory and Practice, Cambridge University Press, 2026. Censorship is the dark side of historical writing. Because much censorship is shrouded in secrecy, the subject tends to stay outside mainstream histories of historical writing. Consequently, many such histories offer unduly optimistic accounts of historical writing. They assume that historians produced their works in a political vacuum. This view is challenged here through an examination of the post-1945 censorship of history and its entanglement with power and freedom. This Element can be explored in three ways. The main overview discusses the international standards on freedom of expression, the demarcation debates on censorship, and the problems in tracing it; it also reviews censorship’s reasons, key players, and effects. Furthermore, a dozen spotlights present significant themes or patterns of censorship. Finally, a glossary locates the concepts related to the censorship of history within the broader network of terms related to the freedom of expression about the past.

Re-Visioning Education 2030: Towards Quality Lifelong Learning Opportunities for All. Dianne Thurab-Nkhosi. The University of the West Indies Press. 2026. Across the Caribbean and the wider world, the call for inclusive, equitable and high-quality education has never been more urgent. Building on UNESCO’s Education for All initiative and guided by the Incheon Declaration for Education 2030 and CARICOM’s Human Resource Development 2030 Strategy, this new collection brings together leading education thinkers to explore how the region can re-vision learning for a rapidly changing future. Re-visioning Education 2030: Towards Quality Lifelong Learning Opportunities for All gathers contributions from distinguished scholars and practitioners in the Caribbean, North America and South Africa. Together, they address three pivotal themes: ensuring the relevance of education in a global knowledge economy, advancing inclusion and equity across diverse contexts and driving the transformative development of teachers and students. From curriculum reform and online learning to workforce development, digital ecosystems and equity for marginalized communities, the chapters highlight innovative strategies and promising practices. This timely volume is an essential resource for educators, policymakers and institutions committed to shaping resilient, future-ready education systems that extend well beyond 2030.

Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration and Mental Health and Psychosocial Support: Operational Guidance. World Health Organization, 10 July 2026. This operational guidance addresses the integration of mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) into disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) processes in conflict and post-conflict settings. It highlights how prolonged exposure to armed conflict, community stigma, family separation, loss of livelihoods and other adversities can affect the mental health and psychosocial well-being of people formerly recruited or associated with armed forces and armed groups, including children, women and their families. Recognizing that these challenges can create barriers to successful reintegration and social inclusion, the document emphasizes the need to view DDR not only as a political and economic process but also as a mental health and psychosocial one. Drawing on international standards, existing guidance, expert consultations and practitioner experience, the publication identifies strategic and programmatic entry points for strengthening MHPSS within DDR. It promotes a holistic, family- and community-based approach that includes assessment of needs and resources, organization of integrated services and supports, meaningful participation of formerly recruited individuals, child-sensitive programming, community-based interventions, capacity-building for DDR practitioners, and coordination across sectors. The guidance also underscores the links between MHPSS, social cohesion and peacebuilding, and provides a framework for operationalizing MHPSS throughout DDR processes to support sustainable reintegration and recovery.

Towards a Community-Based Model of Mental Health Care in Poland: Findings of the Rapid Assessment. World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe, 19 June 2026. The report “Towards a community-based model of mental health care in Poland: findings of the rapid assessment” presents the results of an assessment conducted by the WHO Regional Office for Europe at the request of the Ministry of Health of Poland. The assessment engaged a broad range of stakeholders across Poland, including representatives of community mental health centres, national and local health authorities, mental health professionals, NGOs, and service users. The goal was to evaluate the country’s readiness to scale up the community-based model of mental health care nationwide, building on the experience of the Pilot Programme on Mental Health Centres. The assessment explored existing strengths, ongoing barriers, and stakeholder priorities, with a focus on the alignment of governance, service delivery, financing, and workforce development. More broadly, the report aims to clarify the strategic and operational steps needed to complete the transition towards a community-based model of mental health care. It identifies critical gaps in coordination, care navigation, clinical standards, and data monitoring, and proposes actionable directions to support equitable, person-centred, and recovery-oriented mental health services throughout Poland.

Working with Interpreters in Mental Health (2nd ed.). Rachel Tribe, Kate Thompson, Haritaworn Raval (Eds.). Routledge, 2026. This fully updated edition gives an insight into the opportunities and challenges of mental health professionals and interpreters working together in mental health. Drawing on extensive theory, research, and practice, chapters combine contributions from a range of disciplines on topics including interpreters in medical consultations; issues of language provision in health care services; the application of theoretical frameworks to the work with interpreters; and the work of interpreters in a variety of practice settings. This thoroughly revised edition also features additional chapters exploring interpreter perspectives on their work, along with new chapters on working with interpreters in forensic settings, in National Health Service talking therapies/primary care settings, in humanitarian work, in schools, and with older adults, as well as presenting an interprofessional approach to interpreter and therapist training. This book will be invaluable for practitioners of psychology, psychiatry, social work, and other health professionals. It will also be relevant to interpreters working with mental health professionals and their managers and service leads. It will be of interest to anyone involved in commissioning language support in health and social care services.

Social Justice, Social Discrimination, and Mental Health: Theory, Practice, and Professional Issues. Rachel Tribe and Dinesh Bhugra (Eds.), Routledge, 2024. Social Justice, Social Discrimination, and Mental Health explores the theory and background of social justice in the context of mental health of individuals, cultures, and communities. This ground-breaking book is a comprehensive text which defines what the ‘social justice agenda’ in therapeutic fields is and provides concrete and innovative descriptions of social justice in practice. With case studies and examples of real-life practice from a team of international contributors, it covers the full range of activities that mental health professionals need to deliver their services. This text will be essential reading for students, early career professionals, and those training in psychiatry, psychotherapy, clinical, counselling, and community psychology, as well as senior practitioners.

Human Rights and Wrongs in Psychology and Psychiatry. Malcolm MacLachlan, Ikenna Ebuenyi, and Brendan Kelly, Oxford University Press, June 2026. Human Rights and Wrongs in Psychology and Psychiatry includes a series of real-word case studies from leading practitioners around the world and presents a significant new interpretation of the subject. Each case study in the book invites the reader to use an evidence-based framework to think how their own circumstances and position are influencing their thinking in relation to the case study.  The book also includes interviews which have never been published before.

Podcasts

Emma Bellamy, Podcasts presenting stories of Australia-based immigrants and refugees, along with insights from migration experts and professionals.

Call for Papers

Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, Calls for Papers. American Psychological Association (APA), 2026. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology invites manuscript submissions addressing topics within peace psychology. International in scope, the journal welcomes contributions from psychologists and scholars in related disciplines whose work engages with the peace psychology literature.

Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma Special Issue on “Identifying and Uncoupling the Links Between Trauma and Juvenile Justice.” Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma, Springer Nature. 2026. Deadline: 1 October 2026. The Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma invites manuscripts for a special issue, planned for summer 2027, examining the links between trauma and juvenile justice. Submissions may address developmental processes, resilience, prevention, trauma-informed treatments, and programming, with a focus on youth involved in the justice system. Quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods studies, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and high-quality conceptual papers will be considered.

Upcoming Webinars

“Building Bridges Across Divides: Joy Warmington and Alan Kessedjian in Conversation”.Tue 8 September, 7.30-9.00pm (online). Join Joy Warmington (BRAP/Equality Republic) and Alan Kessedjian (Amnesty International – Central England Network) for a conversation exploring antiracism, dialogue, and practical ways of building understanding in an increasingly polarised world. Together, they will discuss how activists, practitioners and communities can engage across divides while remaining rooted in justice, compassion and human rights.

Events

11th International Conference of Community Psychology – ICCP 2026. Gathering in the Motherland: Celebrating the Ways of Water & Reconnecting to the Source. September 1 – 4, 2026. Lagos State University, Lagos, Nigeria. Water, the excellent nurturer, supports all forms of life, whether mythical or actual. Water runs through and shapes every landscape, enlivening the hills, the mountains, the forest, and animals of varied kinds. The power of water lies in its ability to shapeshift form for conditions. The rise of civilizations has always been inextricably linked to the successful management of water when there was either too little or too much of it, harnessing its power. All ecosystems and cultures, through the movement of humans and goods, have often become identified with the societies they support. Is it possible to think of China without imagining the Yangzi, ancient Egypt without the influence of the Nile, Caesar’s Rome, or Dante’s Florence without picturing the Tiber or the Arno? It is impossible to think of the transatlantic trade and redistributing human bodies across the Americas without Lagos, Badagry’s “Point of no Return.”

 International Human Trafficking and Social Justice Conference. Virtual Conference, September 23–25, 2026. This conference brings together researchers, practitioners, advocates, survivors, educators, and policymakers to address human trafficking and promote social justice. The program explores current research, prevention efforts, survivor-informed practices, and multidisciplinary responses to trafficking while providing opportunities for learning, collaboration, and professional exchange.

Human Rights in Mental Health and Disability Services in Ireland. 6 October 2026, 13:30–16:00, Trinity College Dublin. The seminar will address human rights in mental health and disability services in Ireland, including progress and challenges in advancing human rights, workforce optimisation, and good human rights practice in mental health and disability services. The event will also include the launch of Human Rights & Wrongs in Psychology & Psychiatry, edited by Brendan Kelly, Ikenna Ebuenyi, and Mac MacLachlan.

12th ISHHR International Conference: The Role of Ceremony and Culture in Healing. International Society for Health and Human Rights (ISHHR). 4–7 May 2027, Montréal, Canada. The 12th ISHHR International Conference for Health and Human Rights will explore the role of ceremony and culture in healing and bring together people working with individuals and communities affected by traumatic events and human rights abuses. Participants will include Indigenous leaders and community members, health and social welfare professionals, service providers, educators, researchers, students, civil society organizations, and others working in health and human rights. Pre-conference workshops will be held at McGill University on 4 May, followed by the main conference from 5–7 May 2027. 

ENDNOTES

CONTACTS: Published by the Global Network of Psychologists for Human Rights – www.humanrightspsychology.org

Disclaimer: The website of the Global Network of Psychologists for Human Rights (GNPHR) contains articles, events and news about the domain where psychology and human rights intersect. The information presented in this Bulletin, does not imply that the GNPHR shares the views and beliefs in the articles.

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