Cultural Context of Human Development and Mental Health: Implications for Community that Care (CTC) Programme for Development of Mental Health Amongst Adolescents and Youths

The present article offers an overview of a cultural context of human development and its relationship to the mental health of youths and adolescents. The article traces the context of human development by comparing collectivist and individualistic social patterns and how theses affect human development in terms of values, autonomy, responsibility, achievement and self-reliance. These cultural developmental patterns are underpinned by an integrative perspective of human development in a cultural context. The article brings to light current trends and prevalence of mental health amongst adolescents and youths from a global perspective. By so doing, the articles posits a strong relationship between culture and mental health. Accordingly evidence points to the fact that cultural factors are critical determinants of mental health. Hence there are cultural criteria for determining mental illness in relation to dysfunction, distress, deviance and disorder. The paper concludes by recommending the Community That Care (CTC) approach in mitigating mental problems amongst adolescents and youths. In this regard, CTC is an evidence-based, comprehensive, multi-tiered system of support that encourages the collection and systematic use of community-level data to identify areas of strength and need and to guide plans for preventive strategies based on a community’s specific profile.