Mental? So what! Erasmus Project

Project Title

Mental? So what!

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Inclusion – equity; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation

Project Summary

Mental? So what!

Four partner organizations from four countries – Germany, Austria and Slovakia as partners, the Czech Republic as the main coordinator – are involved to the project Strategic partnerships supporting the exchange of experience and good practice. All four participating partner countries provide the primary prevention program called “Mental? So what!” The program was created almost 20 years ago by the German organization Irrsinnig Menschlich e.V. in cooperation with the University of Leipzig. Original target group was high school students, it gradually spread to Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Austria. In these countries program was stabilized in its basic form. In Germany the program was upgraded and spread to new target groups (teachers, university students and young workers). Demand for all variants of the prevention program is now growing in all participating countries.

• The aim of the project is to unify the offer of prevention programs in all partner countries
• Create a system of common management and evaluation, which will guarantee the quality of the provided programs and the mutual development of the participating organizations.

The target group of the project are the employees of the preventive program “Mental? So what!” in each country. Each country has its own national coordinator, who coordinates and manages the regional teams. This structure allow the dissemination of project outputs from the international to the local level. All partner countries have almost 500 workers in the positions of psychologist, psychotherapist, social worker, psychiatrist, peer consultant, etc.

The project aims will be achieved by the following activities:
• Transnational Project Meetings – 3 personal meetings (opening, continuous and final) + video-based electronic meetings as needed. These meetings will not only manage the project, but also set up an International Steering Committee for the Preventive Program and creation system of uniformed results reporting and common evaluation.
• Short-term common training of employees – in the first part of the project there will be 3 three-day trainings on various topics according to the focus of new prevention programs on various target groups. Participants from all organizations will gain the competence to implement these programs, and they also will be able to train other staff for program implementation. Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia participate in the role of students, Germany has the role of trainers in this activity. Each training will be attended by 5 people from each country.
• Combined Mobility – 12 five-day mobility between all participating organizations to get to know each other, exchange information, understand the context of program in each country, inspire and establish personal collaboration.

The whole project consists of 18 activities and is spread over 32 months.

The main social impact of this project is to improve the conditions for social inclusion of people with own experience whit mental crisis by developing the primary prevention system. The conditions will be improved also thanks to education of prevention program providers, which will further educate adults from the ranks of teachers, students, employers, workers.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 93903 Eur

Project Coordinator

Fokus Praha, z.u. & Country: CZ

Project Partners

• Zdruzenie pre dusevne zdravie Integra, obcianske zdruzenie
• Irrsinnig Menschlich
• Psychosoziale Dienste Steiermark Dachverband der sozialpsychiatrischen Vereine und Gesellschaften Steirmarks