This conference is part of the project Implementation of Mental Health Promotion Policies and Strategies in EU Member States and Accession countries (EMIP), of which EPHA is a partner. The project is coordinated by the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health - FIOSH/BAuA (Germany).
The goal of EMIP is to provide national partners and the wider EU membership with opportunities, resources, information and expertise that support their efforts to improve effective implmentation of mental health promotion.
The conference provided an opportunity for national partners and consortium partners to exchange information and expertise and learn from each other. It addressed examples of good practice in the field of mental health promotion across Europe and featured the preliminary results of this EU supported project.
Although there is growing evidence of the benefits of promoting mental health and well-being, in practice mental health is often little understood. Mental health promotion is often seen as rather marginal on the health agenda and is sometimes completely absent from other relevant agendas, such as education, local and regional policy, sustainable development, etc. Although there are mental health promotion activities ocurring in EU countries, they may be uncoordinated, marginal to the mainstream, not evaluated, not explained to the general public and to the media, under resourced.
Experience demonstrates that addressing these problems will require more than simply developping national mental health promotion policies and action plans. The position of mental health promotion at policy level is significant, but it is not a sufficient determinant of implementation, because policy documents may sit on a shelf.
Therefore, for a country to strengthen implementation of mental health promotion, there is a need to look more widely at the factors that tend to be associated with the implementation, such as marketing mental well-being, defining success, evaluation, governance, etc.
