Education and empowerment for transition to community

The project focused on supporting people with mental illness to recover and integrate into the community after returning from hospital or long-term residential care. Hospitalizations, especially long-term hospital or facility stays, are often significant turning points in the lives of people with mental illness. They often spend many weeks, sometimes months or years in hospital and completely lose normal daily routines, contact with loved ones and the environment, and coping strategies. The post-discharge period tends to be challenging, some have low motivation to continue treatment and there is a high risk of suicide. To date, there has been no comprehensive training program in the Czech Republic, Estonia and Croatia to support people with mental illness in this area. As all three partner organisations are involved in the field of mental health care and adult education, they have combined their knowledge and skills to create an education program and support people with mental illness to return to the community.

The aim of the project was to support, empower and strengthen the core competencies of people with mental illness prior to discharge from a psychiatric ward or hospital in order to support their recovery and return to the community through a developed training module including specific information, practical tools and space for reflection and sharing of experiences.

1, Creation of the training module 2, Pilot training and evaluation 3, Updating of the training module and creation of video clip 4, Final conference and dissemination

A training module has been developed for people with mental health problems to support recovery and return to the community after discharge from a psychiatric hospital or residential facility. It focused on three key topics: recovery, communication and safety. All three partner organisations were involved in its development and each team included trainers with their own experience of mental illness and recovery. A total of 62 people with mental illness were educated and empowered for transition to the community in all partner countries. Staff from 2 psychiatric hospitals, 1 residential facility and 1 recovery college gained knowledge and practical tools to empower people with mental health problems to recover and integrate into society. A pilot training session was conducted, and the training module was evaluated and modified based on the experience and feedback. A short video was produced to present the training module and the experience of the development and pilot teaching in all three partner countries. Professionals and stakeholders have been informed and the training module has been made available to others who can use it in mental health care and in supporting people with mental illness to return to the community.