This large-scale project - funded by the European Commission, DG Health and Consumer Protection - was aimed at building a European Strategy to initiate and implement actions in Member States on Mental Health Promotion and Prevention for coping with anxiety and depression in Europe.

The division into three sectors (children, adolescents and young people to age 24 years in educational and other relevant settings, working adults from 25-60 years and older people from 60 years in various settings) ensured that the whole life span was covered. A Consortium of the four following organisations representing public bodies and non-governmental organisations competent in the fields concerned carried out the project: Mental Health Europe (children, adolescents and young people to age 24 years in educational and other relevant settings), the Federal Institute for Occupational Health and Safety (working adults from 25-60 years) and STAKES (older people). The University of Deusto was responsible for the Financial Management and Assessment of the project.

In Mental Health Europe's sector, a network of national partners was created in 12 EU Member States (all except Denmark, Ireland and Luxembourg) and the EEA-countries Iceland and Norway. Represented in the network were partners from institutes, organisations and centres in the field of mental health with a particular interest in mental health promotion and prevention for children, adolescents and young people. Three experts were appointed with expertise in mental health promotion and prevention of mental illness, child and adolescent mental health promotion, and child and adolescent psychiatry.

The task of the National Partners in each of their countries was to identify and to evaluate, projects and models of best practice in mental health promotion and the prevention of anxiety, depression and related disorders in the target group of children, adolescents and young people up to 24 years in various settings.

To collect and systematise the information gathered from each of the projects, the partners were provided with two questionnaires. Questionnaire I focused on outlining the broad approaches and the prevalence and burden caused by anxiety disorders and depressive disorders. Questionnaire II aimed at collecting detailed information of the projects and practices in each country. The national partners were given six months to identify, select and describe the projects from their country. The project Executive Committee and the experts evaluated the projects subsequently on the basis of a pre-determined system of evaluation and inclusion criteria.

After carrying out a pre-selection in their country, the 14 countries involved submitted a total of 32 projects. Responses to the Questionnaires varied greatly from country to country. Replies received from e.g. Austria, Italy and Germany were rather scant whereas Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Portugal and Iceland provided a number of very good projects. The poor responses would appear to be the result of the absence of any mental health plan in these countries and in particular to the fact that mental health promotion and prevention strategies are still not deemed a priority for a number of EU Member States. A majority of the projects were school interventions, aiming to provide information about mental illness and to reduce stigma and prejudice. But there were also projects for babies of depressed mothers, group treatments in community mental health centres, projects working with juvenile offenders, self-help groups, etc. Target groups often included the general population of children, adolescents and young people but also more specifically children of psychiatric parents, foster children, juvenile offenders, teachers, parents, etc.

One striking feature of the projects that were received was the fact that most of them target adolescents and young people between 14 and 24 years of age. There are however projects for pregnant mothers and their babies but children in the age range from 2 years to 7 years seem to be an age group in which projects in the field of issues related to depression, child abuse, prevention or promotion interventions, in early school settings have yet to be developed and improved.

The conclusions resulting from this project have lead to recommendations on how to improve mental health in Europe in order to increase wellbeing and to reduce high costs. These recommendations will now have to be put into practice.