Activity of the Mental Health Promotion Centres
Information on the Mental Health Promotion Centres can be derived primarily by mapping data appearing in the monthly reports and the relevant templates.
Each Mental Health Promotion Centre submitted a report on its previous month’s activities by the 10th day of the next month. These documents discussed, among other things, their strengths in cooperation and factors impeding cooperation, and could be used by the Mental Health Promotion Centres for making proposals for dealing with obstacles. Cooperation relied primarily on the procedural rules worked out by the Methodological Centre, which could be used as a basis for professional work. The effectiveness of communication was provided for by the contact person, that is, the HPO-MHPC coordinator. Among the factors facilitating cooperation representatives of the MHPCs noted in particular that members of the Methodological Centre are very straightforward, helpful, flexible and always available.
The responses showed that the key obstacles to cooperation and quick and effective task performance included primarily the physical distance and the resulting occasional disruptions in the flows of information, along with tight deadlines. The respondents of the Mental Health Promotion Centres found solutions to be lying in closer communication, timely information exchange and in enabling better planning of activities. In response to learning about difficulties in cooperation the Methodological Centre organised a one-day consultation in Budapest – involving the Methodological Centre, the Mental Health Promotion Centres and the working groups – where representatives of the Mental Health Promotion Centres could meet and consult directly with those responsible each output element. Further face to face meetings took place during process support events, training programmes and other joint organised events. The Methodological Centre communicated with the Mental Health Promotion Centres through a central email address, ensuring that all staff members are always kept informed.
The activity of the staff members and the effectiveness of cooperation is clearly proven by the fact that the key target values of the project were fully met. The most important results are summed up in Table 1. Details of the achievements in networking, the gathering of good practices and the results of the HPO-MHPC programmes and events, as well as the tasks relating to the problem maps concerning primary data capture involving the MHPCs will be discussed specifically below.
Networking achievements
HPO-MHPC professionals set about network development drawing on the hosting HPO’s organisational set-up and experience and even contacted potential partners with whom and which the HPO had no or only formal partnership in place. The target to be met was to involve at least 10 stakeholders and supporting partners per MHPC. The criterion for a successful agreement was whether the new partner network member signed the letter of intent on cooperation or made a similar verbal commitment. This target was met by each of the 6 HPO-MHPCs.
The HPO-MHPC of the Hatvan micro-region performed extremely well, by involving as many as 91 partners. This figure drives home the fact that positive local antecedents such as the already efficient operation of the HPO, its extensive network of partners, and supportive cooperation on the part of the HPO’s head, made an invaluable contribution to the activities of the HPO-MHPC staff.
The distribution of the partners involved by the 6 HPO-MHPCs by type of institution/organisation is
summed up in Table 2. The table shows that the majority (75) of the network members came from the healthcare system, followed by the social sector and youth groups in the largest numbers in terms of organisation types (27 member of each in all of the micro-regions). The smallest number of network members came from the police (2) and health administration bodies (3), in the six micro-regions. The expected target value was delivered in each of the micro-regions.
Indicators of the collection of good practices
Data of the 5-star evaluation of the 26 good practices identified by the 6 HPO-MHPCs are presented in Table 3 and illustrated in Figure 1. Accordingly, one project reached the 1-star level, 18 projects
reached the 2-star and one came up to the 3-star level. Thanks to the activity of the Mental Health Promotion Centres and the unflagging background support provided by the Methodological Centre, a considerable number of good practices were identified even in this relatively short-term project. The good practice target value of the project (at least 2 good practices to be found by each MHPC) was met. The HPO-MHPC of the Hatvan micro-region performed particularly well, delivering 9 good practices found by its staff members to the Methodological Centre.
Programmes, events
One of the most paramount tasks of the Mental Health Promotion Centres was to organise and stage programmes and events focusing on mental health improvement. These programmes came in two types in terms of the role undertaken by the HPO-MHPCs:
1. Programmes and events with the HPO or the HPO-MHPC as main organiser.
Cooperation with the HPOs enabled MHPC professionals to introduce themselves at all one-off or regular programmes and events organised by HPOs. They participated in local health days, conferences, sports events, other similar forum etc. All relevant organisation and documentation functions relating to these were carried out by the HPO-MHPC.
2. The programmes and events were organised by the Methodological Centre or by event organising subcontractors, in cooperation with the HPO-MHPC.
Each Mental Health Promotion Centre delivered and implemented the following training programmes and organised events in the framework of the project:
• TTT1 (Train the Trainer session, Day 1) 8 times 45 minutes of frontal training: focusing on depression, suicide and risk estimation, with contribution by the Methodological Centre’s professional staff members.
• TTT2: 8 times 45 minutes of frontal training: focusing on stress and dementia, with contribution by the Methodological Centre’s professionals.
• TTT3: Awareness raising concerning the above 4 topics, including theme processing based on own experiences; with moderation by the Methodological Centre’s professionals.
• TTT4: Knowledge transfer by a HPO-MHPC colleague concerning one of the above 4 topics.
• Project presentation event: with plenary presentations in the morning and a variety of stands set up for the afternoon, an local project introduction event for stakeholders and residents, with the participation of the project’s managers, the representatives of the Methodological Centre and HPO-MHPC professionals.
HPO-MHPC representatives focused during the organisation phase on recruiting professionals to participate. The target group of the TTT sessions comprised primarily professionals working in the healthcare system, however, all network partners were also welcome up to a maximum of 25 participants. From the aspect of the TTT days’ established structure and the questionnaires associated with the training it was crucial that the same professionals should – to the extent possible – participate in the training days at each of the venues. This goal was accomplished thanks to the effective recruiting techniques applied by the HPO-MHPCs, making it possible to measure changes in attitudes.
Problem Map – semi-structured interviews, problem ranking indicators
The HPO-MHPCs contributed to the primary data collection for the problem maps by performing SWOT analyses with the HPO managers, semi-structured interviews with local professionals and by working out ranking orders of problems based on their findings. MHPC staff members conducted semi-structured interviews with 5 network partners (one family doctor, one district nurse, one youth protection expert/teacher, one social worker and one disaster management officer) in each micro-region concerning the local situation in terms of mental health. All interviews were completed in each micro-region. The MHPCs even set up ranking orders of the local issues identified through the interviews, with the involvement of 10 professionals in each micro-region.