EMPOWER.Ment

Of all groups of people with disabilities, people with severe mental health difficulties, experience the greater level of social exclusion, due to various reasons, with lack of knowledge, ignorance and stigma being the predominant ones among them. In other words, it is not the condition per se of the people with smhd that obliges them to not participate in social activities, work, live like all, but the beliefs that surround their condition and them in general. Although there is an increase of the population who experience smhd, as research has shown, and are diagnosed with a smhd throughout the EU over the past years, little has been achieved from their inclusion point of view. That causes a serious human burden, family/friends burden, professionals’ lack of therapeutic success and serious discrimination and violation of human rights.
The proposed project aims at empowering people with severe mhd to be included socially, through ensuring their inclusion in every step of the training and/or therapeutic pathway – from planning to evaluation. That will be achieved through the proper training and preparation of volunteers, friends/family, mental health professionals, university students, who surround and support people with smhd.
At the same time, the outcomes of the project will facilitate all people surrounding a person with smhd to ensure it’s equal participation in every aspect of their life.
On the other hand, trainers, trainees, professionals, volunteers and youth workers, support workers, as well as family and friends, all will become familiar with ways of social inclusion and be acquainted with solutions while working with people with smhd.
Finally, this project will introduce a cross-European terminology on severe mhd, that can play an important role in forming new beliefs for severe mental health distress, which, in consequence, may lead to a new approach in the social inclusion of people with smhd.
Considering the fact that more and more people experience smhd, making sure that they participate in the planning and implementation of others’ training and/or their own therapeutic path, is a crucial factor for the promotion of social inclusion for this social group. It is equally important to have in mind that mental health difficulties have a cross-cultural and inter-national nature, so, this project can be of use to every European country.