Mental Health - A Socially Inclusive Life Project

The “Guide to Good Practices” is the end product of the “Mental Health – The Socially Inclusive Life Project”.

Its purpose was to gather materials and tools so that information is presented in a format that other organizations/associations can use if they wish to work in the key project areas, promoting partnership work between users, mental health professionals, families and also staff from other agencies.
The Guide is separated into 4 chapters. The First one – “Towards Inclusion” – alludes to the social context of mental health nowadays, and it justifies the choice of the 5 key areas of the project.

The Second chapter, “Mixed Learning Groups” explains the methodology used in the development of the learning groups and provides a tool “Ground Rules for Working in Mixed Groups”. This tool describes the possible problems or constraints that might occur in this kind of group and also lists several rules that can reduce or avoid those problems. It was inspired by the experiences of Highland Users Group (Scotland) in working in partnership with professionals.

The Third chapter – “Learning Tools” – presents the tools built by users and professionals during the project, which were used as learning materials for the mixed groups, namely:

Reflection Tools: group of five tools, each one addressing one specific key area of the project, built up from material from each focus group. Reflection and questioning is shown as a good way to learn. The aim is to promote self-awareness about the concepts and their implications.

Action Tool: this tool is a counterpart to the reflection tools. While these teach how to reflect upon a certain reality, the action tool is to teach how to do something about it. Its structure, however, allows a wider application to any project, including Individual Life Projects. There is a brief explanation of what a project is and its use, a Guideline Form on how to build a project and two specific examples of how this action tool can be used. One example is about an individual life project and the other one of a community project.

The last Chapter gathers the main conclusions, in form of personal testimonies from users and professionals, redrawn from the evaluation that took place at the end of the project, the challenges faced during the development of the project and the sum up of three years’ work in partnership.

The Appendix includes the Focus Group Template that enabled the main conclusions to be drawn up from the users’ interviews, as well as the Interview Script.; the evaluation form used to assess the project development; and a small introduction to the organisations that formed the partnership and how to contact them.