EU-level Roundtable for World Mental Health Day

To mark World Mental Health Day, MEP Estrella Durá (S&D, Spain) and MEP Cyrus Engerer (S&D, Malta) co-hosted a face-to-face EU-level Roundtable event on the 12^th of October at the European Parliament in Brussels, in collaboration with Mental Health Europe.

Aligned with the 2023 World Mental Health Day theme, ‘Mental Health Is a Universal Human Right’, and in response to the recent European Commission Communication on a Comprehensive Approach to Mental Health, the EU-level roundtable focused on the Psychosocial Approach to Mental Health. The event aimed to highlight emerging and evolving mental health practice challenges concerning the psychosocial approach to mental health and identify approaches to address them. Moreover, the event also sought to constructively critique and question current systems in place with the ambition of changing them for the better. The discussion set to foster dialogue and collaboration among policymakers, and relevant stakeholders to better implement the psychosocial model of mental health.

This event brought together a diverse range of stakeholders, including representatives from Trimbos Institute, FEANTSA, AGE Platform Europe, Mental Health Ireland, Society of Social Psychiatry P. Sakellaropoulos and IPSO Ghent. As an Interinstitutional meeting, the roundtable included representatives from the European Commission, Ms Isabel de la Mata, the European Parliament, including MEP Sara Cerdas (S&D, Portugal), rapporteur of the first European Parliament own-initiative report on mental health, and member states representatives from Belgium, Finland and Malta. Mental Health Europe presented the Mental Health Europe Toolkit on the Psychosocial Model of Mental Health.  This toolkit is designed to facilitate the adoption of psychosocial best practices across various sectors in Europe.

During the fruitful discussion, representatives from civil society shared concrete examples of how the psychosocial model can be applied in practice and how the approach could better support the communities they represent. Similarly, representatives from the Council shared the work of their member states on mental health, including good practices or existing barriers.

Find the Toolkit here.

For a quick introduction, watch the video animation below.