Involvement and joint ownership of people with lived experience (PLE) in mental health policies

Summary

This task aims to involve individuals, including adolescents and young adults, with lived experiences of mental health issues. There is a lot of evidence available which shows the improvement of MH services after a meaningful involvement of PLE in mental health services, as well as in community settings and in decision making process, in agreement with numerous international agencies’ (WHO, EC) recommendations. The core aspect is, that people with lived experience are relevant support in evaluating which methods, approaches, structures, conditions support their recovery, and which do not. This is crucial knowledge for the improvement of MH services. This task is fully oriented to put in place concrete actions, to implement pilot activities at local level and to test and study the effectiveness of implemented actions. Each country will start from a different point. Some countries may have already a culture of involvement, participation or co-production, other countries may not even have a self-help movement. In the preparatory phase of the proposal, some countries have already indicated the intention to participate as observer in one or more actions, others have expressed their commitment to fully implementing one or more actions. As for an example for activity there will be developed the best practise example which include PLE in service design as well as developing the training manual for PLE to ensure the peer support for people with experience of suicidal ideation or behaviour. Suicide prevention and peer support for PLE is one of the priorities in many national mental health strategies and this practical initiative can be used and implemented in MS in very simple manner with expected high feasibility.

The subtasks are:

• Sub-task: Valorising current good practices of PLE involvement in MH services and community settings
• Sub-task: Development of models of training and peer support tools and development of evaluation tools
• Sub-task: Guidelines and recommendations for a destigmatization strategy at National level

Including PLE perspectives and insights is crucial to ensure that these initiatives can be flexible, responsive, and cater to their specific needs throughout their entire lifespan. This inclusive approach will enhance the overall effectiveness of these interventions, resulting hopefully in better outcomes for individuals and the broader community. This Task will also capitalize the experience of the TSI Youth First, which lead to the development and experimentation of methodologies for consultations with young people in the health and social fields, as well as the preparation of policy recommendations for a meaningful future engagement of young people in social and health issues through youth networks.