2. Empowering All Community Stakeholders for Effective Participation

​

The training programme embraces the principle of community participation and involvement. Mental health promotion involves encouraging and empowering all community stakeholders in mental health promotion in general or in developing specific mental health promotion projects. In the case of training professionals for specific mental health projects, representatives from the populations directly concerned by the mental health promotion objective in question are encouraged to participate in fixing the health objectives and designing and delivering the programme. The training programme also takes into account how the populations concerned are going to be able to resource and manage their health promotion in a sustainable way (finance, time, etc.).

 

What this criterion means for care professionals

 

A major role for care professionals will be helping different stakeholder groups to access the information and resources necessary for them to participate in the debate. The role of the professional is not to tell people what they should do, but to ensure that all parties are able to participate and have the means to acquire the skills necessary to participate effectively. Community capacity building is a key conept. It

 

‘... strengthens the ability of community organisations and groups to build their structures, systems, people and skills so they are better able to define and achieve their objectives and engage in consultation and planning, manage community projects and take part in partnerships and community enterprises. It includes aspects of training, organisational and personal development and resource building, organised and planned in a self-conscious manner, reflecting the principles of empowerment and equality’ (Skinner S, Building Community Strengths: a Resource Book on Capacity Building,Community Development Foundation, London, 1997).

 

Professionals and future professionals must learn to work collaboratively with those who traditionally have been expected to play only passive roles with regard to mental health interventions. This implies that professionals will be interacting with individuals and organizations in the community from a different position than the one many community members may be expecting.

 

What this criterion means for initial training of care professionals

 

Initial training should introduce different community practices. It is important to know and understand the concept of empowerment as well as to see and experience examples of empowerment and learn how, as a future professional, one can help to develop it. Studying mental health promotion projects in which the community has participated can help to become more aware of the importance of community involvement. Give future professionals the opportunity to discuss traditional beliefs about mental health professionals and their role in order to improve community empowerment and learn to collaborate with all stakeholders.

 

Ideas for training modules/exercises

 

• Ask students to identify mental health promotion strategies in the local community around the institution in which the training is taking place; describe the projects that are happening and how they are integrated into the community, the local NGOs, and the roles of different local actors.

• Ask students to design mental health promotion actions in the local community, taking into account all the different stakeholders and identifying ways of integrating them.

• Ask participants to design a mental health promotion project on promoting health and well-being in a village in a country area or in a neighbourhood area in a big city. Identify and involve all the different stakeholders (i.e. not just the health professionals in the village or in the neighbourhood in question). Learn how to help different stakeholders to participate effectively, to access training, to valorise what they have learnt from their personal experience.

• Participants need to understand that mental health is a collective issue, that all stakeholders have their own mental health to consider, and that all stakeholders have resources that enable them to share common goals; it is important that each of them sees that they have their own interests in the project.  Example: A  role play on building healthy schools. Divide students into groups of five and give each group member a description of the role they have to play: headmaster, teacher representative, parent representative, student representative and a social worker. Each role has specific instructions: 1. The headmaster defends the financial aspects and insists that any new program is going to be too expensive; 2. the teacher does not want step out of his/her power position, and always wants to be right and have the last word, except when speaking with the headmaster; he/she does not want any extra obligations or responsibilities; 3. the parents’ organisation representative defends the rights of their children and insists that the school is obliged to provide for the children’s well-being; 4. the student representative advocates for the needs and ideas submitted by the children; 5. the care professional acts as a moderator and tries to ensure that the all voices are heard, considered, respected and that there is no abuse of power. At the end of the exercise, each group of five reports back to the training session on how they felt in their respective roles and shares experiences and skills gained from the exercise.

 

Illustrate how this criterion could be respected for continuous training

​

The trainer may face greater resistance from professionals who have been working in situations in which the discourse on health has been traditionally controlled and legitimated only by medical authorities. The principle of mental health promotion: every citizen must have the means and be able to acquire the skills necessary to participate in the community debate on well-being, on healthy living and on good health. Care professionals have a major role to play in facilitating this participation, and helping all participants gain confidence in their right and ability to participate.

 

Handling peoples’ problems day in, day out, some professionals find that their attitude has become pessimistic through focusing only on what goes wrong. They no longer see their clienrs as active role-players in participative community well-being, but only as “people with problems”. It is important to renew participants’ skills in supporting clients to express and defend their point of view on positive mental health issues and well-being in general.

 

Ideas for training modules/exercises

 

• In the case of a project with specific population, such as a project with the adolescents of a particular village or neighbourhood, invite adolescents to help fix project objectives, define the content of the programme and participate in delivering the program. When designing projects, make sure to take into account how the stakeholders in question are going to be able to make the project sustainable. What will happen two years down the track when the adolescents who helped set up the project have moved on and are no longer adolescents? Discuss the different care professionals’ possible roles in making mental health promotion projects sustainable.

 

Consult the following Resource Kit for further information, relevant legal and policy texts, and examples of posters, slides and training programmes that respect this criterion:

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​