When communities face ongoing trauma, psychological support needs to be accessible where people live and work. PreAct’s field-based approach brings mental health expertise directly into communities, combining local knowledge with practical tools for responding to distress.
During the PreAct pilot in Belize, the team worked with more than 200 local stakeholders across healthcare, emergency response, education, and community leadership. The work combined community needs assessment with hands-on training in Psychological First Aid (PFA), acute stress recognition, trauma-informed communication, and grief support.
Rather than applying a standard model from the outside, PreAct worked with local stakeholders to understand existing resources, challenges, and ways of working. This approach helped identify where additional support was needed while strengthening the capacity of people already embedded in the community.
The Belize pilot reflects a core principle of PreAct’s intervention model: effective mental health response begins with understanding the community and building on what is already there. By bringing clinical expertise, practical tools, and local knowledge together, communities can strengthen their ability to respond to distress both during a crisis and in the period that follows.