Mental Health Europe will organise a capacity-building seminar for all
its members, preceding its conference and General Assembly in Vienna
(Austria). The seminar will be held on Wednesday 30 May from 9.30-17.30.
For more information: MHE Secretariat, Tel +32 2 280 04 68, E-mail

The MHE conference will focus on the outcomes of the consultation
process of the European Commission's Green Paper "Improving he Mental
Health of the population" and the upcoming strategy for the next years.

The focus of the conference will be on the connection and the coherence
between the different European policies and the impact they have on the
mental health of the population. Lectures, roundtable discussions and
workshops will give opportunity for sharing information and deepening
knowledge but also for exchange of good practice.

Participants coming from all European countries will be encouraged to
discuss the possibilities of implementing strategies on mental health
throughout the whole life-div and to initiate co-operation between the
different organisations and institutions working on mental health issues
at the national and European level.
MHE General Assembly will take place at the end of the conference, on
Saturday 2 June 2007.
For more information: MHE Secretariat, Tel +32 2 280 04 68, E-mail

Since the last project partners meeting in November 2006 in Florence,
several developments have taken place in the frame of this project.
The project partner identified and collected some more good practices
for improving the social inclusion of people with mental health
problems. As a result of the dissemination of information about the
project in the newsletters of various European networks MHE also
received many good practices from countries in the EU, which are not
represented in the project. These good practices will now be assessed
and evaluated and possibly included in the online database of good
practices on the project website to be launched shortly.
Four field exchange visits to selected good practices in the Czech
Republic, Slovakia, Scotland and Belgium, were carried out and attended
by the project partners as well as the project coordinator, Sogol
Noorani, MHE President, Malgorzata Kmita, MHE Vice-President Elisabeth
Muschik and Josée Van Remoortel, MHE Senior Policy Advisor. The field
visits were evaluated by the project partners as a very positive
activity; all the partners found it very useful to learn about the local
situation, about the achievements but sometimes also challenges in the
partner countries and to be able to discuss about this with the
professionals and users working on concrete projects.
The project partners have made an effort to get involved in the EU
Social Inclusion Process in each partner country. In many cases, the
partners have successfully promoted the discussion on social inclusion
and the situation of people with mental health problems so that this
issue has been included in the National Reports on Strategies for Social
Protection and Social Inclusion 2006-2008 (the former National Action
Plans on Social Inclusion). MHE and the project partners will continue
their efforts and try to stay involved in the monitoring of the National
Reports and their implementation
Finally, the final conference of the project was discussed, which will
be held on Friday, 01 June 2007 in the frame of the MHE Conference 2007
in Vienna. The first session of the conference will address the issue of
mental health and social inclusion from a broad perspective and
highlight the achievements and challenges in the social inclusion
process at the European and national level. The second session will
focus on the outcomes of the project, in particular on what has been
achieved through the project in terms of raising awareness, establishing
cooperation and implementing actions on the national level. The local
perspective will be the focus of session three. Project partners and
users will highlight the need to empower and involve users of mental
health services in the social inclusion process and present ways how
this can be realised. The fourth session will finally recapitulate the
lessons learned from the project. Recommendations for strategies to
improve the social inclusion of people with mental health problems will
be presented and the following discussion will allow for exchanging
ideas and views on possibilities for future actions.
More information about the conference can be found on the MHE website:

Recent reports indicate that the incidence and costs associated with
mental distress and ill health are substantial and expected to rise
globally in the next 15 years. Equally there is a rapid proliferation of
solutions and responses at societal, organisational and individual
level.
Against this background, PROMENPOL (Promoting and Protecting Mental
Health - Supporting Policy through Integration of Research, Current
Approaches and practices) set out on 1st January 2007 to identify useful
and practical approaches to the promotion and protection of mental
health. It will develop a systematic multidimensional approach to
identifying and classifying effective tools for promoting mental health
across the lifediv.
PROMENPOL will focus on tools that promote mental health for: students
in schools, adults in the workplace and older people in residential
homes.
PROMENPOL aims to impact a range of stakeholders in the mental health
protection and promoting arena including policy makers, practitioners,
researchers, and non governmental organisations representing mental
health, schools and older people's issues, as well as social partners.
The project coordinator is the German Federal Institute for Occupational
Safety and Health (BAuA).
MHE is one of the eight project partners. MHE has been included in Work
Package n°4 and will be mainly in charge of the project's dissemination.
For more information: contact person, Dr. Karl Kuhn, E-mail

In support of the forthcoming European Commission Strategy on Mental
Health, and building on the mental health promotion and mental disorder
prevention components of the WHO Declaration and Action Plan for Mental
Health, areas addressed by the conference will include:

• Evidence to practice for policies and programmes: outlining the most recent advances to support mental health policies and programmes at the local, national and European levels;
• Implementation: helping develop dissemination, implementation and management plans;
• Financing: supporting strategies for financing action and strengthening management systems across Europe;
• Building capacity and training: strengthening policy and advocacy development, and networking.

The conference will be action oriented and highly participatory, being
structured around a large number of working sessions and discussion
panels. A few plenary sessions will introduce each of the main themes.
The conference aims to share examples, barriers and opportunities
encountered throughout Europe in implementing prevention and promotion
action for mental health. The outcomes of the conference will include a
set of recommendations and suggested proposals to support implementation
of action for mental health promotion and mental disorder prevention
across Europe.
The conference is co-organised by the Health Department of the
Government of Catalonia and the Imhpa network which has partners in 30
European countries and 7 international networks (including Mental Health
Europe) who combine their expertise with the aim of developing and
disseminating evidence-based mental health promotion and mental disorder
prevention strategies and policy options across Europe.
For more information on the conference: visit the conference dedicated
website,
http://www.gencat.net/salut/imhpa/Du32/html/en/dir1662/doc13013.html

On 16-17 April 2007, Mary Van Dievel, Director, participated in the EPHA
(European Public Health Alliance) General Assembly and conference on
Health and Enlargement in Bratislava (Slovakia). She gave a presentation
on MHE and on the discrimination of people with mental health problems
in workshop n°5 on Mental Health.
On 17 April 2007, Mary Van Dievel met in Vienna (Austria) with Elisabeth
Muschik, MHE Vice-President, and Andreas Schwab, from the Pro Mente
Akademie, to further discuss practicalities regarding the MHE
conference.

On 17 April 2007, Sogol Noorani, Project Coordinator, attended the
European seminar on Social Economy and Equal Opportunities organised by
the European Standing Conference of Co-operatives, Mutualities,
Associations and Foundations (CEP-CMAF) and the European Disability
Forum (EDF) in the European Economic and Social Committee in Brussels
(Belgium).

On 19 April 2007, Mary Van Dievel met with EUFAMI (European Federation
of Associations of Families of People with Mental Illness) President
Inger Nilsson and Secretary General Kevin Jones in Leuven (Belgium).

On 20-21 April 2007, Josée Van Remoortel, Senior Policy Advisor,
represented MHE at the European Coalition for Community Living (ECCL)
User Involvement Seminar in Zagreb (Croatia). A more extensive report
will be published in our next Newsletter.

On 25 April 2007, Mari Fresu, Project Coordinator, attended an open
information day in Brussels on opportunities for submitting proposals
under FP7 Health Research's Third Pillar "Optimising the delivery of
health care to European citizens".

On 26 April 2007, Sogol Noorani represented MHE at the Social Platform's
Social Policy Working Group in Brussels.