Transforming Mental Health Services through Lived Experience

WHO/Europe has launched a groundbreaking roadmap that prioritizes the expertise of people who have lived with mental health challenges, emphasizing their unique perspective in transforming mental health services. This comprehensive approach aims to integrate lived experience into mental health policies, services, and communities, creating a recovery-oriented health system. The roadmap was co-designed by people with lived experience, their family members, and mental health professionals, highlighting the importance of collaborative efforts in creating inclusive and effective mental health systems.

Key Takeaways:

• The WHO/Europe roadmap, "Transforming mental health through lived experience," is the first of its kind in scope and scale, focusing on integrating lived experience into mental health policies, services, and communities.
• Lived experience practitioners bring unique expertise that complements traditional training and textbooks, making them essential for creating recovery-oriented health systems.
• The roadmap outlines six essential actions for countries to embed lived experience in mental health systems, including strengthening national policy, building organizational readiness, and promoting co-creation.
• Paid professional roles for lived experience practitioners are crucial in promoting meaningful inclusion, with 86% of countries surveyed by WHO/Europe indicating a need for more comprehensive lived experience inclusion in mental health policy-making.
• Co-creation is a cornerstone of the roadmap, involving the participation of people with lived experience, family members, service providers, and policy-makers in the design and implementation of mental health services.
• The roadmap has the potential to mobilize international experience and evidence to transform mental health systems, with a representative body for lived experience experts being proposed in some countries.

Statistics:

• 86% of countries surveyed by WHO/Europe include lived experience in mental health policy-making, but often in a tokenistic manner.
• The roadmap outlines six essential actions for countries to embed lived experience in mental health systems.
• The launch event of the roadmap involved an audience of nearly 400 people from 29 European countries.
• WHO/Europe will continue to support the implementation of the roadmap in select pilot countries over the next year.

Sources:

• World Health Organization. (2023). "Youth engaged for mental health" framework.
• World Health Organization. (July 16, 2023). News release: Transforming mental health through lived experience.
• World Health Organization. (n.d.). Enough waiting: Reshaping mental health care webinar series.