WP5 kick-off meeting: REPORT
The overall objective of Work Package 5 (WP5) of the JA ImpleMENTAL is to support the transition of mental health (MH) services from institutionalised MH care towards the sustainable establishment, further development or scale-up of community-based, user-centred and cross-sectoral networks for MH promotion, care and disease prevention in the participating European countries. More specifically, the aim is to transfer and pilot implement selected elements of the Belgian reform of MH care based on the nationwide establishment of community-based MH service networks and to draw valuable lessons learned for further scale-up of these best practices, as well as ideas for sustaining implementation over time. WP5 involves 26 institutions of 14 European countries.
The WP5 kick-off meeting was held on December 6th in online form, and it was coordinated by the Federal Centre for Health Education (BZgA) from Germany and Regione Lombardia (RL) from Italy.
The aim of the meeting was:
- To get to know project’s participants
- To obtain an overview of the situation of community-based MH (service) networks as well as of ideas/plans, expectations and needs of WP5 partners for the transfer and implementation of the Belgian best practice in the WP5 countries
- To reach a full understanding of and an agreement on WP 5 aims, structures and activities
- To prepare activities of the first three months
- To agree on basic principles and terms of cooperation for WP5
- To get an overview and agreement on next steps and to dos
After a short introductory part, the countries participating in WP5 introduced their teams, presented their mental health systems and the situation of community-based mental health promotion, care and prevention. This also included a presentation of the countries’ initial plans for transfer and pilot implementation of the Belgian best practice model and expectations as regards the work of WP5. Following this, WP5 the tasks, activities, deliverables, work and time plan of WP5, as well as the interaction and cooperation with other WPs were presented by the WP5 leaders.
In the second part of the meeting, the Belgian best practice was presented in detail and discussed with the owners of the practice from the Belgian Federal Public Service for Health. Lastly, the WP5 Advisory groups, their role, composition, meetings, and potential experts included were discussed.
The most important conclusions:
- Several countries have adopted action or prevention plans and strategies for mental health that foresee a strengthening of community-based -service delivery based on user rights and needs as well as cross-sectoral collaboration of professionals and stakeholders;
- Cross-country exchange and learning are crucial to reinforce knowledge and capacities for an effective set-up, implementation and expansion of community-based MH service delivery;
- The preparatory phase of WP5 will enable to get more detailed insights into the Belgian best practice example of MH care reform, and for each country, to finetune ideas and align priorities for pilot implementation with internal policies and strategies, in consultation with stakeholders;
- A situation analysis and needs assessment performed in each participating country at the level chosen by each country will inform the preparation of the pilots;
- Guidance for the preparation and implementation of the pilots in each country will be provided through the development of a common framework for WP5, a close collaboration with other WPs and support to the evaluation will be given by WP3;
- Each participating country should transfer and pilot at least one element of the Belgian best practice example.
Next steps:
- Preparatory activities (virtual country visit to Belgium, Advisory Groups set-up, internal country meetings with stakeholders, elaboration of an Analytical Framework)
- Situation Analysis and Needs Assessment (conducted on the level chosen by each country)
- Preparation & pilot implementation of the Belgian best practice (identification and adaptation of best practice elements for transfer, implementation & evaluation plan development, pilot implementation, country implementation and evaluation reports)
- Synthesis of findings from pilots & “post-JA” preparation (elaboration of a cross-country & synthesis report on the pilot implementation, reflection on implementation and evaluation results)
About JA ImpleMENTAL
More details on JA ImpleMENTAL will be available on the website of the JA https://ja-implemental.eu/about
JA ImpleMENTAL 