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Description
The aim of the project is to to increase mental health awareness, reduce stigma and the risk of discrimination of people with mental health problems. This will be done by training of municipality leaders, public health specialists and community leaders on mental health first aid (VTEA). We will create a working network of VTEA trainers, materials for communities and make the voice of people vulnerable to mental health problems heard. This will provide people with mental health problems with access to services that meet their needs and increases their chances of participation in the community. People with mental health problems, including the youth will be engaged in project activities. Project partners, the Estonian Psychosocial Rehabilitation Association and the Estonian Youth Mental Health Movement will participate in conducting various trainings; Icelandic partner Batamiðstöðin will share their experience in human-rights based approach in supporting people with mental health problems while in hospital and in community-based living.
Summary of project results
Mental health disorders are very common in Estonia. Throughout their lives, 25-38% of people experience mental health problems. Estonia also continues to rank among the highest in the world for suicide rates. An increase in mental health difficulties can be seen among schoolchildren and working age population. According to a study on the health behavior of Estonian school students, symptoms of depression are increasingly prevalent, with recent data indicating that one in three young people experiences them.
Prejudices regarding mental health remain. A third of Estonia''s population agrees with the claim that one of the main causes of mental disorders is a lack of self-discipline and willpower in the individual. Access to help in Estonia is insufficient. Waiting lists for appointments with psychiatrists and psychologists are unfortunately long due to a shortage of specialists. Additionally, the main barriers to seeking help are a lack of awareness and fear of stigma and discrimination.
The project aims to raise awareness and combat the threat of mental health stigma and discrimination by to developing and implementing "The Mental Health First Aid" (VTEA) training and, through it, to expand the circle of people who would know how and be able to provide initial evidence-based, and prompt assistance in cases of mental health difficulties. Another goal of the project is to raise general awareness to reduce the stigma around mental health in Estonian society through awareness raising campaigns.
First, a mental health first aid (VTEA) training strategy, a sustainable format and a quality control system were developed. The outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic during the project gave impetus to the development of an electronic training format, and also helped break the fear of online training format. The introduction of an online training has considerably increased the availability and access to training for people all over Estonia. As a result of the project, a total of 4528 participants have participated the VTEA trainings. According to the training feedback survey, each participant provides first aid to an average of 3 people within 6 months after the training. Thus, thanks to VTEA training, approximately 13,584 people have received primary mental health care.
To provide further support to people who have participated in VTEA training, A VTEA Handbook for Communities was developed. It is a comprehensive handbook on mental health first aid steps and the most common disorders and serves as a support material for VTEA providers for a longer period of time after participating the training.
To further increase the awareness about mental health issues, special 5-step videos were created for this purpose, as well as videos introducing the VTEA format in general available on a dedicated website. In the last 6 months of the project, the website has had an average of 2000 unique visits per month.
In addition to providing VTEA training for individuals, a training format for VTEA trainers was created. The training format for trainers is an important step in ensuring that the VTEA format can continue to be sustainable. 18 new trainers (including 2 Russian-speaking VTEA trainers) were trained. There are currently a total of 26 (including 3 Russian-speaking) mental health first aid trainers.
With project support, VTEA format and materials were translated into Russian. The first training in Russian was conducted in 2020, and by the end of the project, 8 trainings in Russian have taken place, with 112 participants.
On International Suicide Prevention Day in 2021, the first Mental Health First Aid Café Day “Oleme olemas” (We are Here for You) were held in Tallinn and Tartu, introducing the mental health first aid mindset and offering real help to 32 people. In addition to the cafés, both cities had a so-called friend''s bench (in Tallinn''s Telliskivi creative town and in Tartu''s town hall square and Apparatus Factory). A total of 50 volunteer mental health first aiders assisted in cafes and friend’s benches in Tallinn and Tartu, and a total of 119.5 hours of mental health first aid was provided. The event received positive media attention, both on social and mainstream media with the most popular social media post of CSO Peaasjad reached 170,286 people.
A travelling exhibition introducing VTEA was prepared consisting of 66 experience stories collected within the framework of the Suicide Prevention Day “Oleme olemas”. This exhibition has been travelling around Estonian counties to increase awareness of mental health first aid and suicide prevention.
Peaasjad also conducted Respect seminars to discuss at the community level how and what can and should be done at the local level to ensure that people with mental health problems have the opportunity to live in the community as a human right. Within the framework of the project, the foundations were laid for the cooperation with the Universities of Tartu and Tallinn in order to offer Respect seminars also to social students as a free subject. It helps to increase understanding and support among social professionals for the people with long-term mental health problems (such as schizophrenia) living in the communities. This in turn helps to raise awareness so the human right to live in the community, not in an institution, can be ensured.
Mental Health First Aid has become one of CSO Peaasjad''s key focus areas. Their strategic goal is to ensure that at least 1% of the Estonian population (approximately 13,000 people) is trained as mental health first aid providers. The ACF project support has helped to develop a more convenient and accessible format to help achieve this goal.
As a result of cooperation with local governments during the project, the City of Tartu is the first local government where almost 1% of the population has been trained as a first aid provider of mental health.
The collaboration with the Icelandic organization Geðhjálp/Icelandic Mental Health Alliance led to the creation of Peaasjad’s most successful mental health awareness campaign, "Mental Health Vitamins": https://peaasi.ee/vaimse-tervise-vitamiinid/.
The rapid growth of VTEA trainings and awareness campaigns, including the extensive reach of the "Vitamin V" campaign, have increased Peaasjad''s visibility in Estonian society. This visibility has, in turn, raised awareness in society as a whole of the importance of mental health and on opportunities to seek and provide help and reduced stigma surrounding people with mental health problems.
Summary of bilateral results
Icelandic organization Geðhjálp / Icelandic Mental Health Alliance was a project partner with whom Peaasi shared best practices of organizations in the field of promoting mental health awareness. The idea for mental health vitamins campaign came from Icelandic organization, the idea to run a vitamin-G campaign (the name of the Icelandic organization Geðhjálp also refers to mental healt and from there the concept of vitamin-G. In Estonia vitamin-V is used. V refers to mental healt in Estonian). The idea began to develop and campaigns took place in both countries. The campaigns in Estonia and Iceland were differently implemented, but in both countries the idea of mental health vitamins was very well received. The Icelandic campaign can be found here: https://gvitamin.is/ Estonian campaign: https://peaasi.ee/en/mental-health-vitamins/ The vitamin-V campaign carried out in 2022 reached 65,472 people.Online campaign advertising:• The ad was viewed 333,412 times and 3,060,226 unique contacts were reached;• 653,451 people were reached during FB''s vitamin course, 306,549 people on Instagram, 4,367 people visited Facebook, 2297 people on Instagram. 406 new followers on Facebook, 404 on Instagram. 5 and divided 33 times. Tiktok now has a total of 222 followers.This is by far the most comprehensive Mental Health Information Campaign of CSO Peaasjad. There are plans to repeat similar campaigns the coming years.As this vitamin-based approach to mental health awareness has proved successful, the cooperation with the Icelandic partner will continue to promote the idea of a mental health vitamin campaign also to mental health awareness organizations in other countries.