Counties have been urged to establish dedicated budget lines for mental health rather than relying on general health allocations.
The call was made in Kisumu during a Regional Mental Health Conference that brought together government officials, civil society organisations, mental health practitioners and persons with lived experience from Kenya and across the region.
The stakeholders warned that inadequate financing continues to restrict access to services at the community level.
Tinada International Africa executive director Roy Douglas Otieno said mental health requires a specific, earmarked allocation within county health budgets to effectively support prevention, treatment, response and follow-up care.
“We do not just want increased funding for health in general. We want the government to ensure that within the health budget, there is a specific and adequate allocation for mental health,” he said.
Otieno said Kisumu had already allocated funds towards mental health and expressed optimism the county administration would support the implementation of a new workplace mental health policy developed through multi-stakeholder consultations.
The policy aims to embed mental health and employee wellbeing into organisational systems through structured prevention, response, safeguarding, and staff support mechanisms.
Otieno said the definition of a workplace must extend beyond formal office settings to encompass all environment where individuals earn a living.
“When I speak of the workplace, I am not referring to the office alone. I am referring to anywhere an individual earns a living. That is a workplace,” he said.
He said employers must integrate mental health into overall staff welfare rather than addressing it reactively after a crisis occurs.
Stakeholders also advocated for increased investment in community-based mental health services, particularly through community health promoters (CHPs), who serve as the primary link between households and the formal health system.
Otieno said while select CHPs in Kisumu had been trained to identify mental health conditions, conduct basic assessments and facilitate referrals, training and operational support remain inconsistent across counties.
He urged the national government to cascade standardised training to all CHPs using the official national curriculum.
“Referral without follow-up care cannot yield results,” he warned, highlighting the persistent gap between identifying individuals in distress and providing sustained care post-referral.
Icon Data and Learning Labs representative Zeddy Misiga stressed the need for robust data to guide mental health planning and resource allocation.
Misiga said many grassroots organisations lack the infrastructure and technical expertise required to gather and analyse high-quality data.
“We are working to ensure we generate quality data in the mental health space that can drive decision-making and resource allocation at both county and national levels,” he said.
Misiga said documenting the experiences of persons living with mental health conditions would generate crucial evidence to inform stronger policies and programmes across Kenya and the broader continent.
Adem Frank, co-chairperson of the conference planning committee, noted the focus on workplace mental health should prompt employers to prioritise employee wellbeing.
He said the newly launched policy provides a clear framework to strengthen safeguards for workers' mental health.
Frank also recommended that mental health data collected by CHPs be integrated into the electronic Community Health Information System (eCHIS).
He explained that capturing this data digitally would assist county and national authorities in identifying emerging community mental health trends and responding effectively.
The two-day conference addressed mental health prevention, policy, response and management, with delegates calling for enhanced collaboration between governments, civil society, local communities and individuals with lived experience.
Stakeholders concluded that ring-fenced funding, strengthened community-level health services, and reliable data will be vital to shifting mental health care from emergency response to sustained community- and workplace-based care.
