Research & Assessments
Playing to Live's team is a combination of expert and licensed mental health & psychosocial clinicians and public health & global health professionals. While we began with a focus on program development and training, with growth in the organization and a better understanding of where Playing to Live can best serve the community and field of mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS), we have realized that there is a lot of work to be done to highlight the need for MHPSS in communities where mental health clinicians are severely limited. Research and assessments are the backbone to highlighting the need and resources in order to identify opportunities for service expansion.
Playing to Live believes that it is important to have a strong research framework alongside programming to highlight the needs and resources of established programming and ensure best practices. We believe it is essential to stay up to date on current best practices globally and build programming from these practices. To ensure Playing to Live is in line with best practices globally, we have built a library of seminal reports and key annexes. These resources have been established for all major players in the field of MHPSS to use; key authors of these resources include the Inter Agency Standing Committee (IASC), World Health Organization (WHO), UNHCR, International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC), and more.
Playing to Live believes that it is important to have a strong research framework alongside programming to highlight the needs and resources of established programming and ensure best practices. We believe it is essential to stay up to date on current best practices globally and build programming from these practices. To ensure Playing to Live is in line with best practices globally, we have built a library of seminal reports and key annexes. These resources have been established for all major players in the field of MHPSS to use; key authors of these resources include the Inter Agency Standing Committee (IASC), World Health Organization (WHO), UNHCR, International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC), and more.
Past Research
Playing to Live began as a MHPSS response to Liberia's Ebola epidemic. Through a community partnership and funding from UNICEF, our program reached 870 children and hired 40 female survivors.
Click here to learn more about the research of this successful program. A special thanks to our RESH, our implementation partner, and UNICEF, who granted the money to complete this important project. |
Past Assessments

In 2017, Playing to Live responded to the rapidly growing South Sudanese refugee crisis in Uganda by implementing a needs and resource assessment in four of Uganda's largest refugee settlements through the partnership with the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) and collaboration with Transcultural Psychosocial Organization (TPO-Uganda). This 8-month project used multiple best practices for MHPSS assessments, including assessments from the Inter-Agency Standing Committee, UNHCR, WHO, and IFRC. The assessment was widely supported within Uganda and within the humanitarian response field. Playing to Live hopes to provide the results of this assessment as soon as final approvals for wide-spread dissemination are completed.
Click here to learn more about the assessment on our website, or click here to find our blog on HIF's website.
A special thanks to our partners DRC and TPO-Uganda and the Humanitarian Innovation Fund (HIF) and Elhra, who granted us the money to implement this important project.
Click here to learn more about the assessment on our website, or click here to find our blog on HIF's website.
A special thanks to our partners DRC and TPO-Uganda and the Humanitarian Innovation Fund (HIF) and Elhra, who granted us the money to implement this important project.