From EUFAMI’s in-person Annual General Meeting 2023, which was successfully concluded in Athens, Greece last June, to the FAMILY project GA Meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland and the IPSS Recovery Summit in Barcelos Portugal, EUFAMI's contribution to research and advocacy has played an important part to the development of mental health approach in Europe.

EUFAMI's PROSPECT project updated Facilitator Manuals for Prospect People with Lived Experience, Prospect Health and Social Care Professionals, and the Prospect Common Ground have been and will continue to be tested in the remaining weeks of 2023 and into 2024. 

The FAMILY Project annual General Assembly Meeting took place in Lausanne, Switzerland this last October, where stakeholders shared the progress that has been made so far in each scientific work package. EUFAMI is involved in the Ethics and also Communication work packages.

EUFAMI also attended the 36th Congress of the European College of Neuropharmacology (ECNP), which took place in the historical city of Barcelona, Spain on 7-10 October 2023.

EUFAMI's INVOLVE training programme, which focuses on developing advocacy strategies regarding the involvement of informal carers in relation to the social needs and treatment of the individual they are supporting, has now been completed. Due to the success of the programme, a second cycle of workshops is considered to take place within 2024.

Last but not least, we have been informed that the proposed weekend of the 28th-29th June 2024, when EUFAMI had decided to hold their first in-person Congress after the pandemic, in Vilnius, Lithuania, is viable no longer due to a significant international sport event taking place in the city and hotels, which deems the hotel bookings a challenging fit. After discussions with our Lithuanian partners LSPZGB, we have now agreed to bring the event forward to 21st-22nd June 2024.

Please remember to add this new date onto your calendars!

Wishing you a joyful and mindful holiday break!
EUFAMI

 

EUFAMI Congress 2024 - Vilnius, Lithuania 21st-22nd June 2024*
 

Over the last 4 years, Europe has been severely affected, firstly, by the Covid-19 pandemic, which caused major upset to the social and economic lives of everyone, and of course caused major health traumas and death to many people. Secondly, the significant displacement of war, cultural and also environmental refugees has caused devastation at all levels for the people of countries such as Ukraine, which most recently has resulted in major upsets economically for the rest of Europe, and also for the people from across Eurasia and Africa who have been trying to find refuge into Europe.
Of course, families are the center of and most affected by these crises. Thankfully, there has been a significant recovery from the effects of Covid-19 due to good public health measures and vaccination programs. While the threat still exists the world has learned to adapt.

Against the background of conflict and disruption EUFAMI holds a congress theme-centered around Conflict and Recovery in Mental Health, in Vilnius, Lithuania on 21st and 22nd June 2024, with the collaboration of our Lithuanian member Lietuvos sutrikusios psichikos žmonių globos bendrija - Lithuanian Association for the Care of People with a Mental Illness (LSPZGB) .

The sub-themes of the Congress are:

Helping Families to Recover from Mental illness

Migration and Immigration and Mental Health – Cultural issues

Reducing Coercion in Mental Health Services

Better communication through Digital Mental Health Services.

The Congress will be constructed around a plenary session followed by a series of parallel workshops based on the sub-themes.  
   
* The proposed weekend of the 28th-29th June 2024 is not viable anymore due to a significant international sport event taking place in the city and hotels, which deems the hotel bookings a challenging fit. After discussion with our partners from Lithuania we have now agreed to bring the event forward to 21-22 June 2024.

 

 

 

2nd International Congress RECOVERY 2024 - Barcelos, Portugal
30 Nov - 1 Dec 2024
 

 

 

UNAFAM (National Association of Families of People with Mental Illness) was founded 60 years ago at a time where de-institutionalisation started being effective in France. Users would no longer spend years in hospitals, but would swap between short term stays in hospitals and treatment in community centers. They would most of the time live at home with their families who became important stakeholders of the recovery process. Families decided to get together and promote human rights for the users of psychiatry: best possible medical treatment with time dedicated to their own families, house and job access and in case of a chronic difficult condition, access to public allowance and specific homes. A lot has been done within 60 years; a lot still needs to be done. Hence the slogan for the big birthday: “60 years of fighting”.
 

Emmanuelle Rémond
UNAFAM delegate in Paris and EUFAMI Board Member
 

Save the date: 13 December 2023 | 14:00 – 15:45 (CET)!!!
 

As part of the GAMIAN-Europe Peer Support Project, we are hosting a series of workshops exploring different aspects of peer support as well as sharing best practices.

Don't miss the last workshop, focusing on the digital peer support and the innovative effect of these interventions.

Register here to join the conversation.

Last chance to be part of "The 'Vibrant Mind'!!!

The Vibrant Mind is a Pan-European exhibitive art project, led by our friends and colleagues at GAMIAN-Europe, which will feature art exhibitions, workshops, webinars and more during the course of a year-long journey celebrating the power of Art in Mental Health.

Mental health patients across Europe are invited to submit their artwork by 10^th December 2023 and seize the opportunity to see their art featured in galleries across Europe.

You can submit your work here.

EUFAMI is delighted to have partnered with GAMIAN on this project.

    How can we ensure meaningful engagement of people with lived experiences of mental health conditions?

Professor at Columbia University Irving Medical Centre,  Dr. Alice Medalia, President of GAMIAN-Europe, Peter Keri, and EUFAMI's own Executive Director John Saunders shared their thoughts in the latest Brain Talks episode, in partnership with Boehringer Ingelheim.

The toolkit aims to equip patient groups and health influencers with the information and materials they need to have a positive dialogue with their communities about health data and to potentially launch their own health data initiatives.

We invite you to share it with your community!

 

 

Since August 23, over eight national pilot test training programmes have taken place in 9 countries. They have been successfully carried out thanks to the Prospect National Coordinators and the Prospect.
Many positive lessons have been learnt and the evaluative data has, and is being collected so that the Content Development Teams to re-commence their work and finalise the content of all the Prospect Training Programmes.

Crafting a Slogan for Prospect
The existing name, PROSPECT, established about 20 years ago, may not always be clear to newcomers, as this name alone, does not convey the programme's core objectives and this in turn could limit the ability to attract new EUFAMI member organisations and participants.
For this reason, a workgroup was established to carry out an exercise in crafting a slogan for Prospect to enhance the training programme’s recognition and meaningfulness to its participants as well as other stakeholders, and improve overall communication activities. The Working group members were Emmanuelle Remond (France), Andreja Štepec (Slovenia), Davorka Vukadin (Croatia), Miquel Miranda (Spain) and Bjorn Bayer (Switzerland). 

The workgroup met online and narrowed down a list of potential slogans to a choice of 3. Then via an online survey, the Prospect National Coordinator and their Prospect Facilitators were asked to vote on their favorite.
 
A total of 63 votes were received, and "Prospect: Sharing, Learning, Growing." emerged as the chosen slogan with an impressive 62% in favour.
 
The national partners have been requested to introduce the slogan into their future PR communications related to the Prospect Training Programmes and ideally also use, when appropriate, the PROSPECT attributes.

The survey additionally sought input on the need for a new logo to accompany the chosen slogan. It is in fact necessary as the existing logo file is from over 20 years ago and a modern and versatile logo in the format of a high-resolution file is needed for various communication purposes, including printing and online utilization. Members of the Prospect Network have been invited to contribute with their expertise in creating a new logo. As a reminder, if you or someone within your organization possesses the skills and interest in logo design, and would like to participate in this creative endeavour, please let Gwen Crawford (projects@eufami.org) know.

 

Mental Health Act update
 

Over the past few months, Rethink Mental Illness have been calling for the government to deliver desperately needed reform of the Mental Health Act as part of our ‘Wrap It Up’ campaign. In England and Wales, the Mental Health Act is the legislation that allows people experiencing a mental health crisis to be detained in hospital when they are unwell.

The act was first implemented 40 years ago and is badly out of date. It assumes people living with mental illness shouldn't have a say in their treatment, or how their loved ones are involved in their care. The experiences of Black people detained under the act have also got worse and reflect the wider inequalities entrenched in mental health care.

Despite previously committing to reform the act through a Mental Health Bill, we were deeply concerned the government could abandon its plans. That’s why to mark Rishi Sunak’s first anniversary as Prime Minister in October, Rethink Mental Illness campaigners visited parliament to deliver him a copy of the Mental Health Bill with a clear message: #WrapItUp and deliver promised reform.

Sadly, the government dropped the Mental Health Bill from the most recent King’s Speech, where the government set out its priorities until the next election. This decision represented a profound betrayal to the thousands of people detained under the act every year and everyone who has campaigned for decades to reform it.   

Despite this setback, we will continue campaigning for Mental Health Act reform to be a top priority for politicians at the next UK general election, which is due to take place next year.
 

Training and skills development for carers of people with a chronic illness or disability (family members, relatives or friends)

 

 

To show our support for Carers Rights Day, we hosted three events across Wales in Monmouthshire, Carmarthenshire and Conwy. The events aimed to provide carers with a hub of information, support and useful workshops. This included one to one legal support sessions, workshops on issues affecting carers such hospital discharge, money advice & carers assessments, and physical health sessions. There we also time to allow carers to unwind, with a number of crafts tables and lunch provided.
 

For the event we produced two publications that will be made available for digital download in December via our website. The first, our ‘Carers Information Booklet’, containing everything a carer may need to know about the role; the second, our carers ‘10 Point Plan’, which contains 10 important tips for carers of all experiences.
 

ART4MORE - Art & Mental Health Festival
The established Festival, which opened to the public eye for the 16th consecutive year, dived into the theme ''Oppression | Identity | Acceptance'', both in Athens and Tilos island.

Τhe Festival brought awareness to its theme, through contemporary art exhibitions, performances, visual arts, music concerts, drama, interdisciplinary forum, and workshops for all ages.

We continue envisioning a world without discrimination and prejudice about mental health, which is why ART4MORE was born 16 years ago. An innovative International Arts Festival that bring awareness to social issues and mental health while honors the World Mental Health Day.

COLPBOL
More than forty Greek sports teachers and professionals learn about COLPBOL - an inclusive sport that allows the participation of all, regardless of their physical or mental condition - in Athens from the EU-COLPBOL partners, EDRA and the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and University of Athens.

OPEN HOUSE - OPEN EMOTIONS
On World Mental Health Day we explored the meaning of connection, not only with ourselves, but also with those around us! To achieve this we opened the doors of the HIPPOCRATES II - Boarding House and welcomed people from the community to celebrate mental health together.

The October 7 Massacre by Hamas, in which more than 1200 people, mainly civilians, were slaughtered, and 230 people kidnapped into Gaza, has had an immense effect on mental health in Israel and on our activities.

We are deeply involved in the new National Plan for Resilience & Mental Health. Our Chairperson, Rivi Zuk, participated in the meeting of the Parliament’s Health Committee.

We are also actively engaging with stakeholders to mitigate the effects of the grave situation on the SMI population, which we represent. Given the expectation of the need to treat traumatised people in numbers unrecognized before (~100.000 people are affected directly, and many more indirectly), it is our concern that the SMI population will be lost in the shuffle.

We implored psychiatric hospitals that discontinued families’ visits because of lack of sufficient sheltered facilities where patients and families can take cover during the daily rocket attacks coming from Gaza and Lebanon, to find solutions because of the utmost importance of these visits. We contacted the head of the Rehabilitation Headquarters to urge the continuation of the Rehabilitation services, even under fire. We also demanded reach out to those clients of rehabilitation that were evacuated from their homes, to make sure that they continue to get services wherever they have been relocated to. Finally, we were instrumental in the simplifying  the procedure to obtain certain psychiatric medications.

In parallel, Ozma organized family members zoom session with a clinical psychologist with the purpose of increasing their stamina during these hard times.