Task-Sharing and Stepped-Care Mental Health Services in Angolan Higher Education: A Multi-Site Implementation Protocol (ANGOSAP).

BACKGROUND: Higher education institutions in Angola face increasing demand for mental health and psychoeducational support in the context of limited specialist workforce and service capacity. ANGOSAP is an Erasmus+ - funded capacity-building initiative designed to establish sustainable, university-embedded Psychological and Psychoeducational Support Services across partner institutions in Angola and to strengthen early access to support within higher education settings. METHODS: This Study Protocol describes the rationale, service model, and early implementation framework of ANGOSAP. The project uses a co-designed, stepped-care, task-sharing approach adapted to the context of each participating institution. Core components include campus-level standard operating procedures for intake, triage, risk assessment, safeguarding, and referral; competency-based training and supervision; student-facing psychoeducation, brief psychological interventions, and digital resources; formal referral pathways; and pragmatic monitoring. Early implementation success will be assessed using predefined indicators: service reach, median waiting time from first contact to first appointment, first-appointment uptake, care-plan completion, reliable clinical change on validated symptom or functioning measures, serious incidents, acceptability, and equity-stratified access and outcomes. RESULTS: No primary clinical outcomes or human participant data are reported in this Study Protocol. Preliminary outputs include a defined implementation pathway for university-based services, a minimum dataset for routine monitoring, quality and safety procedures, equity-oriented performance dashboards, and a cross-site learning structure to support iterative service refinement. These elements are intended to enable early-access, context-sensitive care while generating practice-based evidence during phased implementation. CONCLUSIONS: ANGOSAP provides a structured protocol to test the feasibility of university-based psychological and psychoeducational support in Angola. By combining capacity building, supervision, referral integration, and routine monitoring, the project will generate practice-based evidence on reach, access, safety, acceptability, and early clinical change. These findings will inform service refinement across participating institutions and provide a roadmap for engaging national stakeholders, including health and higher education authorities, in future policy development.