4. Including People with Mental Health Problems

​

The training programme applies its objectives also to people with experience of mental health problems, mental health service users and their carers. People with mental health problems and, in the case of training related to a particular mental health promotion programme, people with mental health problems related to the programme objective, are included from the outset.

 

What this criterion means for care professionals

 

Care professionals devising or taking part in programs and activities to promote health mental need to remember that people with mental health problems are part of the general population and therefore part of the population their mental health promotion programme will be addressing. Care professionals should be trained to work with service users as experts from experience. Learn to involve individuals having or having had a mental health problem in training, so that they can share their experiences with trainees: hearing people living with a mental health disorder has a different impact. It also contributes to the fight against stigma and discrimination. This also means treating mental health service users with respect and recognising and challenging the many ways in which they are not treated as citizens by others around them.

 

What this criterion means for initial training

 

During initial training, students should meet and work people with mental health problems as trainers, partners in student research projects, key informants and potential key actors in community projects. This enables students to become more aware of everyday habits, routines, knowledge, values and norms, and at the same time face their own stereotypes and prejudices. This approach also gives a voice to people with mental health problems, who become included in shaping professional practices, concepts and politics. Training for care professionals should create possibilities for dialogue between mental health service users and professionals regarding practices that can bring the most benefit for service users and carers.

 

Ideas for training modules/exercises

 

• Invite participants to discuss their own attitudes towards mental health, define their personal definition of mental health, and explore with the rest of the group what they would like to change or improve in their everyday life regarding mental health.

• Ask participants to design a mental health promotion project on a particular topic. Examine how people with mental health problems related to the programme objective might contribute to the project design and implementation and discuss the implications for outcome.

• Design the curriculum so that it takes into account the presence of students who experience a mental health problem during their initial training (approximately 1 out of 4 will have a psychological problem, minor or major, which will hinder their learning pathway during their studies at some point in time).

• Establish a policy to promote student mental health.

• Design a project to promote mental health for students. Include among the trainers, certified care professionals who have experienced mental illness during their studies.

• Include throughout the curriculum trainers with experience of mental illness.

• Include people with mental health problems as participants in certain modules.

• Include, as trainers, qualified care professionals who have experienced mental illness.

 

Illustrate how this criterion could be respected for continuous training

​

Traditionally, most care professionals will have been trained in a system where the user point of view is presented indirectly, via case studies and/or supervision of cases. In practice, they will often have become used to seeing mental health service users as patients, where the patients’ role has usually been a passive one. Continuous training needs underline the importance of re-integrating service users as actors of the health and social care system. Involving service users and carers as trainers in professional training benefits both trainers and those taught.

 

Ideas for training modules/exercises

 

• In training professionals to implement interventions in schools on healthy eating, do not forget the probable presence of students who have an eating disorder (anorexia, obesity). Bring someone who has or has had an eating disorder to talk to students.

• In training workforce care professionals on promoting resilience and stress management in private enterprise, do not forget the possibility that there are workers present who have anxiety disorders related to stress in the workplace. Invite a worker who already experienced a stress disorder to talk about their experience.

• When implementing training for job counselors on working with people mental health disabilities, involve as trainers people with mental health problems and professionals who have experienced work-related health problems (job stress, depression...)

• Include people with mental health problems as participants in certain modules. Working in small groups, with users in each group, prepare (a) a mental health promotion project on a general population mental health subject (e.g. work/life balance, healthy schools, healthy eating, drinking alcohol…), studying the implications for mental health service users who might hear this message, and (b) a mental health promotion project specifically targeting people with mental health problems.

• It is important for students to realize difficulties users have in accessing information and competencies. Invite a service user to present a true story about trying to access information about a particular mental health theme (parenting skills, resilience, communication skills...).

 

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:

​

​

​

​

​

​

​