Highlights | ||
 | Mental health promotion in young people | |
| Growing evidence shows that certain well-implemented early intervention programmes for young people can achieve significantly more benefits than costs. A paper developed by the WHO Collaborating Centre for Mental Health Promotion, Prevention and Policy in Finland, outlines the urgent need to develop more mental health promotion programmes and comprehensive support services for young people. | ||
| Conference on lifelong learning and empowerment in mental health. 11 - 12 February, Paris, France | |
| Users of mental health services often experience difficulties in rejoining the work force or participating in meaningful activities. This conference presents research and current practice within lifelong learning and empowerment in mental health. | ||
| World Mental Health Day 2009 Mental Health in Primary Care: Enhancing Treatment and Promoting Mental Health | |
| The theme addresses the desirable shift from traditional mental health services into mainstream healthcare, requiring family doctors to become competent in assessment, detection, treatment and referral when required. | ||
| Wilma's story | |
 If you enter the psychiatric business as a patient, you run a high risk of being reduced to the mental disorder you came with, or to a disturbed object. Read Wilma's own story. | ||
| The Forgotten Children - Vilnius, Lithuania 26-27 November 2009 | |
| This conference takes up many of the difficulties children of parents with mental illness face. They are often forgotten and put at greater risk of experiencing mental disorders, school and adjustment problems in addition to coping with the stigma of mental illness. The conference aims at drawing on and promoting good practices. | ||
| Towards community-based mental health care | |
| Mental health care reform across the WHO European Region is leading to the closure of psychiatric hospital beds and the opening of supported homes in the community. A 15 minute documentary film tells the story of a supported residence in Cerrik, Albania. Less than a year after its opening in March 2008, four out of 12 patients went back to their families. The video is in Albanian with English subtitles. | ||
Mental ill health accounts for almost 20% of the burden of disease in the European Region and mental health problems affect one in four people at some time in life. Nine of the ten countries with the highest rates of suicide in the world are in the European Region.
Much is now known about what works in mental health promotion, prevention, care and treatment. The challenge is now to implement this knowledge.
Services and practice do not always reflect the knowledge of what works in mental health care and treatment. Many countries have limited community-based mental health services and little specialist help for young or elderly people.
Many people in large mental institutions are subject to neglect and abuse of human rights, reflected in high mortality rates. Stigma and prejudice are widespread and affect every aspect of mental health, including whether people seek and receive help.
