Is There Already a Place for Local Alliances and Digital Mental Health Tools Against Depression in EU and Beyond?

I will discuss how, in our search for ways to socially destigmatize mental health crises and promote the willingness of people to seek psychological help, crisis intervention, or psychiatric support, we have been drawn to methods that focus on working with the media and local communities. Through action research, we are examining whether there is space today in 8 EU countries for public mental health initiatives to meet local communities, combined with digital interventions for mental health. We are applying the alliance against depression (AAD) method, developed by the international network European Alliance Against Depression (EAAD), which, as part of a European drive for global mental health, has also reached other continents, such as Australia. In this method, local organizers begin forming a local alliance, where both formal and informal allies become individuals, institutions, and media interested in the area, who want to spread the message that depression can affect anyone, it is a real illness, and it can be treated. In semi-peripheral Poland we initially created such an alliance in the central district of Warsaw, using a grant from the EU’s Third Health Programme. Moreover, as an extension of local interventions, we are introducing a non-commercial digital psychoeducational tool, EU4Health-funded iFightDepression, for certified mental health professionals across Poland, also in the displacement, migration and refugee context. Certified mental health specialists, including psychologists providing support to students, can offer this online tool, funded by EU grants, to their clients and patients across Poland and five other countries during the course of local interventions. The presentation and discussion will be theorized in terms of clinical sociology, action research, community-based intervention and guideline-oriented treatment as well as mixed top-down and bottom-up impulse of Europeanization towards European Health Union.