Shape Action: A Global Thematic Consultation on Mental Health & Child Marriage to inform our Shared Global Evidence Agenda

PICTURED: Mentors and staff in the midst of a collaborative doodle exercise: an activity that helps to build interpersonal relationships while also regulating stress and emotions through doodling. Colors of Connection, Goma, DRC 2020. Photo by Christina Mallie.

The details

As part of the Shared Global Evidence Agenda to Prevent and Respond to Child Marriage consultation process, the UCL Global Network on Mental Health and Child Marriage, together with Queen Mary University, Girls Not Brides, The CRANK, UNFPA–UNICEF Global Programme to End Child Marriage, UNICEF Innocenti, and WHO, are hosting a global evidence consultation to highlight ongoing gaps in the mental health and child marriage landscape.

We want to hear from you about the challenges you face, gaps in your practice that you think need filling, and what you think are the most important questions our field needs to answer to improve the mental health of those affected by child marriage.

In this interactive workshop, we will:

• Share a brief overview of the global evidence gaps on mental health and child marriage to help ground our dialogue in shared, evidence-informed insights.
• Identify the research gaps most relevant to our contexts and our work on the mental health of those affected by child marriage.
• Collaboratively build consensus on evidence needs for norm-shifting interventions to end child marriage.

This consultation is an opportunity to discuss, debate, and share experiences related to mental health in our field, and to propose key research questions that will guide future evidence generation.

We warmly invite stakeholders across national, community, regional, and international levels — including academics; policymakers; representatives of multilateral organisations; programme practitioners and implementers; young people; research donors; advocates; service providers; and individuals affected by child marriage — to join us in this critical discussion.

Your participation in this session is essential to deepening clarity, fostering collaboration, and building consensus on priority research questions for this thematic area.