In a new article published this week that forms part of the PLoS Medicine series on Global Mental Health Practice, Shoba Raja and colleagues report their case study of implementing the "BasicNeeds" model of mental health and development in Nepal, which emphasizes user empowerment, community development, strengthening of health systems, and policy influencing.

The authors say their model works in partnership with governments to provide the "great push" that is required to set up services where mental health and development have not yet been a priority. The authors report their preliminary results and lessons learned from the first 8 months of implementation.