Centre for Mental Health, Law and Policy (CMHLP), based in Pune, India, was founded in 2007. Their mission is to strengthen and transform the mental health of the communities to be holistic and responsive in addressing individual and collective well-being. They facilitate pathways that enable people to lead healthy and fulfilling lives. To apply a rights-based approach, they collaborate with stakeholders from multiple disciplines including policymakers, mental health professionals, researchers, civil society organisations, persons with lived experience and the media. They work nationally & internationally, with a specific focus on vulnerable & marginalised populations across low- and middle-income settings.
CMHLP work is spread across Law & Policy Reform, Suicide Prevention, Community-based Mental Health, Health Systems Strengthening, Peer Support, Youth Mental Health and Training & Education. Their ongoing projects include
Transformative Health and Recovery Initiative through Recovery Aid
(THRIVE)
Atmiyata Project – A community based Mental Health Initiative
Suicide Prevention & Implementation Research Initiative (SPIRIT)
Keshav Desiraju Indian Mental Health Observatory (IMHO)
Legal Support for the Implementation of the Mental Healthcare Act, 2017 (MHCA)
Outlive: Youth Mental Health and Suicide Prevention
Implementing Early Physical and Mental Health Detection and Support: Promoting a Whole-School Approach to Health and Well-being (ISOBAR)
STRIDE – Action research project for suicide prevention in Odisha state
Contact And Safety Planning for suicide prevention in Chhattisgarh (CASP)
Mindkind study – An international feasibility study
Enabling School Teachers as Gatekeepers for Preventing Adolescent Suicides in Chhattisgarh (ENGAGE)
Being India – International initiative to understand the mental health needs and well being of young people in India.
QualityRights Gujarat: Advancing Mental Health Care Facilities,through a rights-based frameworks
Using Peer Support In Developing Empowering Mental Health Services (UPSIDES)
Question. Persuade. Refer (QPR) is an Institute whose mission is to save lives and reduce suicidal behaviors by providing innovative, practical and proven suicide prevention training.
A Gatekeeper is a person who is in a position to recognize a crisis and the warning signs that someone may be contemplating suicide.
A Gatekeeper can be anyone from different walks of life who are strategically positioned to recognise and refer someone at risk of suicide.
As a QPR trained Gatekeeper one is trained to recognise the warning signs of suicide, offer hope, obtain help and save a life
Outlive is a youth suicide prevention programme, designed and developed by CMHLP, that addresses urban youth suicides in India by engaging young people aged 18-24.
After completing the QPR Gatekeeper training on 25 January 2022, I was trained for 40 hours (in October 2023) specifically as to how to identify people with distress, provide informal emotional support and help connect persons thinking of suicide to appropriate support services.
Once the fundamentals became clear, I was deployed in a peer support helpline called Outlive Chat. This provided chat-based suicide prevention support to young people in India. I provided support for 77.5 hours between October 2023 to January 2024.
I was one of the earliest of the 169 Indian youth trained in India as peer supporters between August 2023 and 30 June 2025.
