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Description
The Liga za duševné zdravie has had much success in promoting mental health over the past year. Following the General Assembly of the Liga’s member organizations, which last took place in 2013, and following an internal audit of the membership base, the Liga begins to work actively with members, actively identify their needs and represent them to the public administration to influence public policy in their areas. Each member organization works in an environment that needs to be reformed. The reform of the mental health care system, which was postponed for 30 years, was included in the government''s program statement, in the partnership agreement and in other documents. The reform is beginning to take place, although its contours are not yet clear. It is therefore very important, instead of drawing attention to the need for reform, to start formulating position papers at the moment, which will contain specific proposals in individual areas. The quality of the outputs and the way in which the member organizations are represented depends on whether the reform will be created behind closed doors or it will be an open process that will ultimately take into account the needs of patients and those organizations struggling for years and resources in the third sector. Every member organization struggles to survive on a daily basis and does not have the capacity to engage in systemic work that is diametrically different in nature from everyday performance. The League has therefore created a digital platform to facilitate communication and individual working groups, and also engages the facilitators of individual groups from its own or external human resources so that the creation process has a result that can be enforced against the state.
Summary of project results
The project helped the organization League for Mental Health to open topics and create working groups that developed them into a sustainable form for their subsequent communication with the public and public administration authorities. Some of them in the form of long-term programs, some as one-time educational activities. Financial resources allocated explicitly for background work - project management, without which it is impossible to prepare any such activity, are very rare, and this is where the greatest added value of this grant lies.
As part of the project, 5 working groups were created, which focused on the following topics:
1) the reform of the mental health care system and the recovery plan, in addition to the public debate, transformed into the active participation of the League representative in the Government Council for Mental Health.
2) the initiative of help lines was transformed from public debate and pressure on the state through a number of activities to the creation of a systemic solution for funding help lines at the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications
3) the thin red line was transformed from a petition and public debate into a project to mark professionals who understand and support the LGBTQI+ community
4) emotional education and mental health of high school students was transformed into a long-term project of the Coalition of Schools for Mental Health
5) psychological violence in society was transformed into a joint project with the Slovak Bar Association focused on psychological violence.
The inclusion of member organizations of the League for Mental Health and better communication with them thanks to the online communication platform was an important milestone in the standard of information provision. The online communication platform will continue to develop and member organizations must get used to the new way of communication. The platform is complemented by general meetings and information meetings of members.