Act Church of Sweden is the international department of the Church of Sweden, working with humanitarian and development action and advocacy. The MHPSS approach has traditionally been located within the humanitarian unit, but is evolving to capture all work of the international department. There is also a need to mainstream community-based MHPSS into more developmental-oriented projects, as participation, inclusion, accountability etc. are key aspects of all Act Church of Sweden projects.
ACT Alliance
Act Church of Sweden is a member organisation of the ACT Alliance, a network of more than 145 churches and related organisations around the globe. Act Church of Sweden works closely with the ACT Alliance in humanitarian and development related matters.
Members of the ACT Alliance and the ACT Secretariat have a common commitment to protect, without discrimination, the rights and dignity of the individuals with whom we work during our responses to emergencies and distressing events. An underlying core priority in emergencies is to protect and improve people’s mental health and psychosocial wellbeing, and to promote their capacity for recovery and resilience.
In 2010, the ACT Alliance established a Psychosocial Support Working Group (PSWG) to advocate for the need for social and psychological considerations in all ACT sectors of work. Following a decision by the ACT governing board in 2012, the PSWG evolved into the ACT Global Psychosocial Support Community of Practice (PS CoP), consisting of international and national ACT member organizations as well as the chairs of the regional CoP and other diverse ACT actors, engaging in MHPSS programming.
A set of MHPSS Guiding Principles were developed by the ACT Psychosocial Support Working Group in 2011 and were updated by the ACT Global PS CoP in 2025. The ACT Alliance has adopted the MHPSS guiding principles, with the aim to have these serving as a reference for MHPSS initiatives conducted by members of ACT Alliance.
Act Church of Sweden is the lead organisation for MHPSS within the ACT Alliance, and for many years chaired the ACT Alliance Psychosocial Community of Practice, connecting local and international actors with the global network of MHPSS. Currently, any member of the Community of Practice may seek to chair or co-chair the group.
ACT Alliance Global Psychosocial CoP
The Global Psychosocial CoP fosters collaboration within the ACT Alliance, creating spaces for members to work together on issues related to MHPSS, including and with a focus on community-based and led interventions. In addition, ACT recognises knowledge and learning as a key asset to the alliance and seeks to provide ways for members to work together as learning organisations. The ACT PS CoP was established to nurture this process.
The goal of the ACT Psychosocial CoP is to generate knowledge, share best practices and develop competence to strengthen the capacity for MHPSS within ACT Alliance members, forums, and partners at the global and regional levels, in an endeavour to enhance resilience and local capacities of the affected population.
Specifically, this includes, for example, the production and dissemination of documents and guidelines; strengthening of ACT Alliance regional and national forums; as well as contributing to global policy debates and advocacy efforts on MHPSS.
Membership in the Global PS CoP is open to representatives from the regional PS CoPs, together with INGOs.
Five Regional Community of Practices
The ACT Alliance and the Global PS CoP encourage decentralisation efforts and support the establishment of regional PS CoPs. During the last years, regional Communities of Practice have been initiated in various
regions (with active regional CoPs at the time of writing in East Africa, Asia and Pacific, Middle East and North Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean).
While each region has its unique identity and approach to functioning as a PS CoP, the following points could be acknowledged as the common purpose for establishing regional PS CoP:
- Trainings at national and regional forums
- Advocacy and promotion of MHPSS at national and regional levels
- Being a technical MHPSS reference in time of emergency for national & regional forum members
- Contextualising and translating relevant materials
- Mapping of existing MHPSS services in the region
- Engagement with the ACT regional secretariat regarding mainstreaming of MHPSS in their action plan
The regional PS CoPs are self-governed by the chairing member organisations regarding administration, logistics, responsiveness and the general strategic direction.