Belgium (Brussels Morning newspaper), European Mental Health Week, a key awareness-raising exercise that has just concluded, brought the major and topical issue of mental health to the front of the EU policy agenda.
The consensus is that mental health issues, already a seriously growing problem worldwide, have got even worse since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.
Lockdowns, restrictions, and emergency policies have changed our diets, physical activity patterns and many other daily habits that are tightly connected to our well-being.
Some 84 million people (ie 1 out of 6) are diagnosed with a mental health condition in the EU and, according to OECD, one in two people will experience a mental health problem in their lifetime, and many will not receive the care they need.
One reason, therefore, that the launch of Mental Health Europe’s (MHE) and its policy recommendations were so keenly awaited.
The recommendations were discussed at a policy debate in the European Parliament involving several senior cross-party MEPs.
These included Hungarian Socialist member István Ujhelyi, Spanish Renew Europe MEP Soraya Rodriguez, a member of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety and Greek deputy Stelios Kympouropoulos, who sits on the Parliament’s Subcommittee on Public Health.
With the theme of “mentally healthy communities,” participants in the lively debate were invited to interpret ‘community’ in the broadest sense of the word, touching every area of policy, from home life, education and the workplace to the wider society including online communities.
In the words of the WHO 2022 World Mental Health Report, “communities are vital places to nurture mental health and wellbeing.”
The event heard that environments around us where we live, learn and work have profound consequences for our mental health, as does the spirit and attitudes of the wider communities to which we belong. According to MHE, they can be a force for good, by “providing people with a sense of belonging” and acting “as a powerful source of support”, but also can present risk factors in the form of stigma, neglect, loneliness, socio-economic deprivation and discrimination.
Christiana Xenofontos, Vice-President of the European Youth Forum, argued that policy must begin to address prevention and stigma in the community, while MHE themselves released a document detailing structural changes they wish to see implemented across Member States and at EU-wide level.
Many changes suggested are unlikely to draw criticism, such as the “resources (that is, funds and spaces) available to community-based initiatives”. The powerful effects of “community” are seen in data on both mental health treatment and prevention. Mental health-specific initiatives grounded firmly in local communities have a greater reach and impact than lofty initiatives dreamed up in legislatures across the world, it was said.
Mental health “toolboxes”, so-called by the MHE, are a set of tools, tips and techniques that we can put into practice to support those in the community as well as friends and family. These include checking in, offering support, and learning about Cognitive Behavioural Therapy techniques to help others think through their anxieties.
The conference also heard that these toolboxes are advocated by many mental health practitioners and counsellors and can assembled by individuals themselves with items that bring comfort, such as toys and fidget spinners, or help us calm down and relax, such as chewing sugar-free gum or using stress balls.
The idea, it was said, is to equip yourself with the tools required to pay closer attention to and monitor your mental health and the wellbeing of those around you. Participants heard that these are “practical and helpful” policies that would “benefit from the European platform to raise awareness of their effectiveness.”
However, the event (24 May) was told that other MHE proposals are likely to come under close scrutiny. For instance, MHE are seeking through their Online Communities and Mental Health initiative to regulate social media and encourage platforms to engage in what has been described as “gatekeeping.”
MHE propose that “mental health considerations are included by design and by default in social media and other digital technologies” and a Digital Services Coordinator be appointed to develop regulations and enforcements against platforms that allow content potentially harmful to mental health to exist on the platform.
Striking a balance between protecting users, particularly children, and fostering a space for creativity and innovation is a delicate task.
Platforms say they are already sandwiched between free speech concerns and legal enforcement and one principal concern, they argue, is that in order to comply with new rules free speech considerations may be forced to make way for safeguarding concerns.
MHE’s Instagram Live on Online Communities programme commendably highlights the positive aspects of online communications for loneliness, purpose, self-acceptance and a sense of belonging. But this too is another area of potential concern for some with claims that community and parental responsibility in navigating the online world may be overlooked as viable alternatives to supra-national legislation.
Other controversies include how sweeping any structural changes might be and critics ask whether mental health ‘mission creep’ is setting in. They also query the economic and political ramifications in implementing changes.
The European Mental Health Week has been described by some as “a tale of two halves”: an important programme highlighting ideas and concrete proposals on an overlooked area of policy (mental health) yet one which also raised concerns about the broader proposals.
The general hope is that the final outcome will be the policy Europe – and those suffering from mental health issues – really needs.
