Representatives of 21 countries shared experiences and examples of good practice
Approximately 50 participants from 21 countries and 39 organizations participated in the two-day JA ImpleMENTAL Member State Policy Committee Meeting and hybrid seminar with EU MSPC members, which took place in Copenhagen, UN city, Denmark.
After the introductory speeches by Ledia Lazeri, regional advisor MHF, and Vasileia Konte, JA ImpleMENTAL coordinator, NPHO Greece, numerous examples of good practice, visions, arguments, and implementation cases were presented in a relaxed, but working atmosphere. Also, a workshop was held on the topic of setting up the campaign to employ persons with lived experience (experts by experience) in policy making, service delivery, training, and research roles.
Good practices for sustaining the capacities of mental health networks were presented. Jenny Telander presented a Swedish example of intersectoral collaboration for sustainable mental health and suicide prevention policy, and Anja Kare Vedelsby introduced the Danish example of integrating the lived experience into sustainable mental health policy and service delivery.
After Ledia Lazeri presented an example of a mental health coalition, the meeting moved on to the presentation of Antonis Kousoulis, director of the Global Health Action Network, who spoke about the importance of awareness, advocacy, and communication for mental health.
Melita Murko, technical officer MHF WHO, and Jason Maurer, communication focal point MHF, WHO above from the regional office for Europe, opened an interesting topic – how to hold policymakers accountable, and a workshop was held on that topic called: „Highlighting the importance of lived experience as the missing link for accountable policy-making“.
The meeting was underscored by the words of Vasileia Konte who said that the JA ImpleMENTAL network’s strength lies in working together to create change through sharing experiences and ideas with other policy committee members.
„At this two-day event, we updated member states on the significant progress of our mental health project and the activities we are working on, particularly in developing new services for suicide prevention. We have learned a lot from our member states’ successes and challenges, and we are using this knowledge to transform services. Our achievements form a solid foundation for future interventions and influence national permanent progress strategies. We are determined to prepare thoroughly and follow all the necessary administrative steps, even though it is a big challenge for longer-term projects. We are eagerly anticipating the results we have been waiting for, and we must continue to work on other actions and activities to ensure the sustainability and growth of the project. We will continue to work on the project with dedication, we will further devote ourselves to these topics, as well as continue our work at the next meeting in Athens.“ – said Vasileia Konte.
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