The governor has also adopted the World Health Organization’s Mental Health Gap Action Programme (mhGAP) by integrating mental health into general healthcare. The inaugural training cohort, according to Ike, equipped 100 frontline health workers — including doctors, nurses, and pharmacists from 10 General Hospitals — with skills to diagnose and manage common mental health conditions. He explained that the Kaduna Model rests on four pillars: Expanding the Frontiers of Care; A Community-First Approach; Investing in Our Future; and A Paradigm Shift in Justice and From Stigma to Support. The framework, he said, has been formally recognised by the UNODC, positioning Kaduna as a national trailblazer. The state is also set to host the first North West Governors’ Forum on Drug Abuse and Security in collaboration with the UNODC, NDLEA, and other international partners. Under the Community-First pillar, Ike noted that cost and distance remain major barriers to treatment. To address this, the state established 20 community-based Drop-In Centres within existing Primary Health Care facilities. By offering all services free of charge, over 20,000 clients have received care in the first year alone. Governor Sani also commissioned the first Community-Based Treatment and Recovery Centre in May 2024, which has provided residential rehabilitation to 116 individuals. Three additional centres are already being developed to expand capacity. According to Ike, the Kaduna Model also promotes prevention through the Kaduna Children Amplified Prevention System (Kd-CHAMPS) — a framework adapted from the UNODC model to provide resilience-building interventions for children and adolescents, including those out of school. He added that the Unplugged school-based drug prevention programme, implemented in partnership with the Ministry of Education and supported by the MTN Foundation, has trained over 200 teachers and reached more than 17,000 students with life-skills education. Kaduna has also become the first location in Africa to implement the UNODC’s LULU sports-based prevention programme at scale, training 32 community coaches and reaching 960 at-risk adolescents during its pilot phase.