Mental Health Foundation: developing a public mental health approach, The

The Mental Health Foundation was established in 1949 as a charity that stocked clinical research - undertaken through academic researchers - into the causes, treatment and care of mental illness.1 The Foundations grants programme broadened in succeeding decades to include support for innovative services provided by means of voluntary organisations. From the early 1990 the Foundation also began to unravel in-house capacity to undertake its possess research work and to support and evaluate useful practice initiatives. In 1997 the Foundation commenc a major programme of work upon children and young people's mental health, Bright Futures

The Foundation's first major Bright coming times report, published in 1999, explored measures to forward children and young people's mental well-being and debar mental health problems and considered by what means the treatment and care of children and young clan could be improved. This work exhibited a significant shift for the Foundation, from a primary focus upon mental health problems to an agenda that addressed the replete range of mental health straits Although the term was not used at the time, Bright time to comes embraces a public mental health perspective.

Since Bright coming times was published in 1999, the Foundation has affirmed its commitment to a public mental health agenda, which can be broadly defined as action to improve population mental health and well-being.

The range of public mental health should encompass interventions that help to:

* forward mental well-being

* prevent mental health problems

* provide effective treatment and care for tribe with mental health problems that defend their human rights and maximise quality of life and recovery

Public mental health may involve interventions upon one or more of the above horizontals and can include:

* structural measures that affect the whole population and/or targeted assemblages - such as fiscal policy or national health and social care policy

* community-based interventions, similar as improved amenities or social support

* group/family or individual measures, of the like kind as home support or counselling.

Public mental health is therefore a multi-disciplinary endeavour that involves the natural and social sciences and the arts and humanities. It is also a profoundly political agenda in that it involves debates about urgencys rights and resources.

Since 2000 the Foundation has explored and disentangleed its public mental health perspective and it now informs greatest in quantity if not all, of its mental health work. lock opener Foundation projects that have either been explicitly informed by dint of a public mental health approach or that can be comfortably accommodated within it are locate out below.

Inquiries and research

* A scoping close attention on the theory, policy and practice for public mental health in the UK (commenc 2004)

* A joint Foundation/SUSTAIN scoping investigation on diet and mental health (commenc 2004)

* A major joint Foundation/Age relate to UK inquiry into the mental health of clan in later life (commenced 2003)

* A joint Foundation/Camelot Foundation UK inquiry upon young people and self-harm (commenc 2003)

* Research upon mental health and young homelessnes (commenc 2004)

* Research upon self-help for people with mental health question s (commenced 2003)

* User-led research upon effective support for people with mental health riddles (phase 2 completed in 2003 further work in progress)

Good practice developments

* A major UK-wide action-research initiative upon arts therapies, creativity and mental health l by means of the Foundation but with support from the midst for Arts and Humanities in Health and Medicine at Durham University and the Scottish Arts Therapies Forum (commenc 2003)

* Joint Foundation/National Institute for Mental Health England (NIMHE) throw out on spirituality and people with mental health riddles (commenced 2003)

* Supporting young clan experiencing crisis (first phase complet in 2004 next to the first phase in progress)

* Whole-school approaches to promoting mental health in institutes (second phase completed in 2003 - after work under consideration)

* Supporting nation with an early diagnosis of dementia and their carers (first phase consummate 2003, second phase in progress)

Education and training developments

* A UK-wide initiative to disentangle accredited learning on children and young familys mental health for key staff of the like kind as teachers, social workers and youth workers (commenc 2004)

* Accredited learning for non-professionally affiliated staff providing care to adults of working age with mental health riddles (Certificate in Community Mental Health Care) (commenc 2000)

* A UK-wide initiative to exhibit accredited learning on mental health in later life for a range of frontline care staff (commenc 2004)

* Training trainers in mental health, including race with experience of mental health enigmas and informal carers (commenced 2003)

* Assessing the mental health learning straits of students on key undergraduate courses (under development)

The above show a challenging and exciting portfolio of work with the potential to make a significant contribution to public mental health in the UK above the next five years and beyond. More information can be place at www.mentalhealth.org.uk or from the Mental Health Foundation e mhf@mhf.org.uk