Presentation

In 2005 the World Health Organization divulged the Mental Health Declaration for Europe as a result of the Ministerial Conference in Helsinki that year. Following this milestone, the European Union initiated a series of responses to address this area, such as the publication of “Green Paper: Improving the mental health of the population. Towards a strategy on mental health for the European Union” in 2005, the manual “Mental Health Policy and Practice across Europe. The future direction of mental health care”, published in 2007, and the “European Pact for Mental Health and Well-Being” in 2008. Conclusions are drawn through these manifestations at European level, such as lack of support to mental health in general, lack of interventions and solutions, the need to tackle stigma and discrimination, and the need for designing training programmes to create a sufficient and competent multidisciplinary workforce.

Taking these circumstances into account, “Mentalprac - Training for Practitioners who Work with People with Severe Mental Disorder”, along with the priorities of the European Union, is a project that has as main goal improving the support for people with severe mental disorders through an increase of skills of mental health care workers.

The specific objectives are:

• Filling the gap of lack of specific formal training of social and health care professionals who support the particular group of people with severe mental disorders.
• Enhancing knowledge and skills of professionals with low or medium qualification caring for people with severe mental disorder, as well as preventing burnout.
• Disseminating training materials for workers in the mental health care environment, and in particular those who work with people with severe mental disorders.
• Raising awareness of specific support needs required by people with severe mental disorders and the importance of training professionals who work with them.