Description
The project addresses the issues faced by people with mental disabilities due to insufficient information and services, prejudices and discrimination. The project aims at empowering these people and their families, raising their awareness and helping them fight their exclusion. First, an awareness raising campaign with printed leaflets and 20 lectures will be held. Second, 22 training seminars for 300 secondary school students will be held. Third, 2 Help Desks will be opened in Sofia to provide psychological, psychiatric and legal counseling to at least 100 patients. 40 meetings of 2 self-help groups for 20 participants will be also held. Next, free counseling will be delivered via a hotline, e-mail and an online system. Finally, a database of available services and specialists will be set up. The project will benefit the target group of people with mental disabilities and their families, the specialists and the community. The partner will be actively involved in all the activities.
Summary of project results
The project raised the awareness and individual capacity of people with mental disorders and their relatives for efficient use of the existing services and reduced the existing barriers arising from lack of information and widespread misconceptions, superstitions and prejudices to people with mental disorders. A database was developed under the project with information about the community-based specialized mental health services, the analysis of the status of mental health aid, types of services offered and their distribution and the number and competence of mental health specialists in Sofia City. One of the tools to achieve sustainability of the results and their multiplication was thе publication of information leaflets and 84 online consultations held under the project on the website of Adaptation Society (psihichnozdrave.com). Thus awareness raising and empowerment of the target groups under the project is continuing after its end and continuity and indirect continuation of providing services will be ensured. In addition, 206 phone consultations were held. The Global Initiative on Psychiatry Foundation in Sofia, as project partner, is responsible for the operation of the phone and information hotline as well as the provision of psychological consultations after the project end. The mutual help group of relatives of people with impaired mental health held more than 20 meetings. Adaptation Society Association provides the group with premises to work and thus will support its further functioning and development after the project end. 24 educational events took place in schools and 616 students took part in them. More than 130 people with impaired mental health and their extended family members were direct beneficiaries of the project.
Summary of bilateral results