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COVID-19 has a great impact on our lives, which is why World Mental Health Day is focussing on the consequences of the pandemic. Concerns about the effects of the pandemic are so great that for the first time large international organizations (World Health Organisation, World Federation for Mental Health, United for Global Mental Health) are joining forces and calling for more investment in mental health.
50% of people with mental health problems in high income countries and 85% in low-and middle income countries do not have access to mental healthcare and this percentage is expected to increase as a result of the pandemic. “World Mental Health Day is an opportunity for the world to come together and begin redressing the historic neglect of mental health,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization. “We are already seeing the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on people’s mental well-being, and this is just the beginning. Unless we make serious commitments to scale up investment in mental health right now, the health, social and economic consequences will be far-reaching.”
Join this global movement and learn how we can all face the consequences of the pandemic through increased and more targeted investment in mental health. Here is an overview of activities presented by the Global Mental Health Action Network and these are some of our suggestions:
9th of October 11.00-14.00 CEST: Join Mental Health Irelands’ Webinar to mark World Mental Health Day; Sharing the Vision - Translating Policy into Practice.
10th of October: Join The Big Event for Mental Health on the 10th of October where world leaders, mental health experts and celebrity guests will join WHO Director-General to tell the world what we can all do to improve our mental health and how we can help make sure that quality mental health care is available to everyone who needs it.
Watch the High-level online seminar “The future of mental health, rights, and recovery in Europe” organised by Mental Health Europe.
Watch the webinar Delivering Mental Healthcare for All: Why investment now is crucial organised by DEVEX and the Global Mental Health Action Network.
Join the Global Mental Health Action Network, an open community with more than 1000 members from 78 countries which aims to improve political and financial support for mental health across the world.
Join the campaign “Move for mental health: let’s invest” / #moveformentalhealth
Join the campaign “Mental Health for All: Greater Investment - Greater Access”; with more information in this report Mental Health for all: Greater Investment-Greater Access
About the Dutch International Mental Health Hub
(Waardenetwerk Internationaal Verbinden)
The Dutch International Mental Health Hub is for anyone interested in international developments in mental health. The Hub arose from the need to connect existing international initiatives to make them accessible. Although there is a desire to look beyond national borders and to initiate international cooperation, it is hard for many people to see where to start. We change this as we act as a Hub or central point where we bring initiatives, information and contacts from international partners and key stakeholders together to connect them with our members. In this way we form a living and learning international community of practice. International cooperation inspires, brings essential knowledge, stimulates innovation and puts mental health on the agenda. Do you have questions, or would you like to highlight your initiative, report or webinar? Mail to mvetten@denederlandseggz.nl.
After Covid-19 lockdown and earthquake in Zagreb (22.3.) 2020 seems to be very depressive and threatened by unsustainability.
1) ESF
Though in May we have signed the contract for ESF project 'Establishment of peer mobile teams for people with psychosocial challenges' (2 years after we applied) where Susret is the partner, it is being implemented in 6 regions (Dubrovnik, Split, Ogulin, Slavonski Brod, Osijek and Vukovar) where partner organizations work.
Project coordinator is NGO Ludruga (a peer led organization) who already have peer support groups in Zagreb since 2017.
The aim of the project is to animate and raise awareness of the people with mental health problems (experts by experience) to join peer support groups, (some of them were educated as facilitators), contribute and support each other in recovery process.
Facilitators of the peer groups are supported once a week by experienced peers. When mobile teams establish they will also be supported (1x week by psychotherapist and 1x month supervised by psychiatrists so they got support for themselves as well).
My role was to sensitise experts by profession (in 3 cities psychiatrists were present, few nurses from Psychiatry; mostly participated social workers, occupational therapists and psychologists) with/through 2-day CARe introduction in order to soften their institution-oriented approach and support recovery process of experts by experience in the community.
History to this project was Twinning project “Ensuring optimal health care for people with mental health disorders,” implemented (2016-17) by the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Republic of Croatia https://www.hzjz.hr/en/directorate/ensuring-optimal-health-care-for-people-with-mental-health-disorders/
As a result, 3 (instead of planned 10) mobile teams were established (consisting of a psychiatrist and a nurse) in Zagreb (dr. Ivezić!), Karlovac (young dr. Salopek) and Slavonski Brod (dr. Ergović Novotny) and piloted for a year.
As it is obvious, there were no peer members in those teams, because at the time of preparing the project, Ministry of Health told Trimbos Institute that there were no peer organizations in Croatia. After the project ended, teams stopped working.
Multidisciplinary mobile teams were introduced in new Mental Health Strategy which is still sleeping in someone's drawer in the Ministry due to tough resistance of prominent doctors (e.g. dr. Ćelić from hospital Vrapče (among members who visited Netherlands within this project) and member of parliament is strongly against psychiatry in the community as he sees it as a threat to hospital Vrapče. Dr. Ivezić is great advocate for community psychiatry in this story)
So this current project run by NGOs enable peers to join one day to multidisciplinary teams in their regions and in the meantime support each other in their's recovery process.
Updates from CARe Ambassador in Croatia - Radmila Stojanovic Babic
Congratulations to Toon Walravens, our CARe Ambassador in the Netherlands, who has started his new role and a new position as Beleidsadviseur/ differentiatie Beleidsadviseur l at De Woenselse Poort
Toon is an Experienced Ambassador with a demonstrated history of working in the mental health care industry. Skilled in Nonprofit Organizations, Forensic Psychiatry, Coaching, Crisis Intervention, and Crisis Communications. Strong community and social services professional graduated from Gent ( België ).
