Association Svitanje/Sunrise continued activities under the Club project, the main goal of which is to encourage the social inclusion of people with severe mental health difficulties. The activities planned by the project were implemented. An evaluation of the project was made regarding the goals and user satisfaction.

Self-help groups also continued with their activities to support the promotion and maintenance of recovery for people with mental health difficulties and for family members.

We:

• continued activities to implement methods for the education of psychiatric residents at the Vrapče Psychiatric Clinic.
• Worked on the implementation of the PROSPEKT method for supporting families of people with mental health difficulties by attempting to apply for some of the appropriate tenders.
• continued with peer support activities as part of the Vrapče Psychiatric Clinic project “Development of mobile teams in the community”, which employs two of our peer experts.
• have been working with the World Health Organisation (WHO) to develop peer support training.
• attended several gatherings related to mental health (Centre for Peace Studies – Promoting a Culture of Law in Europe – EU Charter of Fundamental Rights; at the mental health conference entitled “How are you?”; at the Round Table on Suicide Prevention; the Innovation and Cooperation Forum and the EUFAMI General Assembly in Stockholm organized by the Swedish Schizophrenia Association (SSA); the celebration of World Mental Health Day organized by SUMEZA, SPUH and Životna linije.
• Organised, together with the Croatian Society for Clinical Psychiatry of the Croatian Medical Association and the Croatian Psychiatric Society, a workshop as part of the Recovery Academy at the Institute for Recovery and Community Support of the Vrapče Psychiatric Clinic, to increase the competencies of psychiatrists to improve communication between professionals, patients and family members
• participate in the creation of legal frameworks that regulate important issues related to mental health. Actively cooperate with mental health ambassadors. As a former member of the City Assembly of the City of Zagreb, I am actively involved in political issues regulating the areas of mental health and human rights protection, and was the president of the Coordination for Human Rights. Currently in the working group dealing with amendments to the Law on Personal Assistance. I am the president of SUMEZ, the Croatian Mental Health Association (22 members). We are currently considering the report of the Ombudsman on human rights and their protection in situations where persons are deprived of their liberty (including in cases of forced hospitalisation and the measures and activities that are applied)
• advocated for the return of psychological services to the public health system, but the service disappeared during COVID-19
• continued our cooperation with the EU association for families, EUFAMI.

The cafeteria “Klub Svitanje” within the Vrapče Psychiatric Clinic also continued to operate throughout the year (people with experience of mental disabilities work there).

At GAMIAN, we participated in international initiatives related to mental health research, policy dialogue and recovery-oriented services. Svitanje contributes expertise in engaging people with lived experience of mental illness and their families in research and innovation processes.

Read more about their activities and updates here.

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