Gold Minds

“Gold Minds” is a Public-Private partnership for youth mental health intervention starting in the City of Tshwane and expanding to the rest of South Africa. The intervention aims to improve the mental health of school learners and staff to reduce incidents of violence, bullying, substance abuse and other social ills in Schools​ and improve school retention and pass rates.

The program is an initiative involving the department of social development, department of basic education, school districts, the private sector, international funding agencies, community organizations, high education institutions and implementing partners. Each of these stakeholders has a specific role in implementing different tasks defined in the program as depicted in the graphic:

The program involves using digital mental health assessment tools to improve access to screening for learners, parents and all school staff​; Provide educators with better support to cope with the challenges of burnout​; Link learners to services and approaches to cope with mental health issues and maintain good school performance; and increase mental health awareness among learners, parents and all school staff.  

The program is driven by the strategy of leveraging the private sector to use strategic social investment into SA's Triple Challenge of poverty, unemployment and inequality by supporting interventions that are in the line with the Sustainable Development Goals of improved school outcomes, providing employment opportunities and addressing inequality in access to mental health services.