Examples of Mental Health Interventions
Interventions and support targeted at these groups can help reduce existing inequalities and promote social inclusion, thereby contributing to ensuring interventions to support mental health are universal, yet are calibrated proportionately to the level of disadvantage (WHO, 2022b).
In the WHO guidelines and recommendations, psychosocial interventions for managing mental health conditions involve:
- Psychoeducation
- Stress management (including relaxation training and mindfulness)
- Emotional or practical social support (including psychological first aid)
- Peer support
- Supported employment and housing
Key strategies for reducing risks and boosting protective factors include:
- implementing school-based programmes, including anti-bullying interventions
- improving the quality of environments in communities and digital spaces.
School-based social and emotional learning programmes are among the most effective promotion strategies for countries at all income levels (WHO, 2022b).
The World Health Organisation (2022b) listed examples of campaigns leading to positive changes in public attitudes towards mental health:
Time to Change (England)
Time to Change is an Anti-stigma campaign from England which used activities such as social marketing and media, local community events, targeted interventions for stakeholders, e.g. students, teachers, employers, and young people.
Their key findings were that social marketing and media activity was most effective at influencing intended behaviour toward people with mental health conditions. Moreover, public awareness was strongly associated with campaign activity and increased awareness was associated with more favourable attitudes.
Beyodblue (Australia)
Beyodblue is a mental health literacy programme and its focus is placed on depression and anxiety, media advertising and training, school-based programmes, mental health first aid training, community discussion forums etc.
It appeared that states with more activity saw more improvement in public awareness about depression and the benefits of treatment. Also, training programmes delivered moderate increases in knowledge about mental illness.
Opening Minds (Canada)
Canada came up with contact–based education called Opening minds in which they targeted interventions for stakeholders (youth, health care providers, employers and employees, news media).
The conclusion was that big media campaigns was not effective at changing attitudes and that programmes that target a specific mental health condition may reduce stigma more effectively than those targeting mental ill-health in general.
Sports-based youth development programme (China)
In China a sports-based youth development programme has been found to promote life skills and empowerment among adolescents.
Each week, participants in the programme learned to set goals, build skills and reflect on their feelings about a specific sport.
There were no teachers or predesigned curricula. Rather, the mentors worked like facilitators, allowing the students to set their own learning goals and paths through communication.
Mentors also provided tools and techniques for problem solving within the sport’s context and opportunities for putting these into practice within an environment that fostered resilience building.
A rigorous evaluation concluded that in addition to improving physical activity and fitness, the programme improved students’ mental well-being, self-efficacy, and resilience (WHO, 2022b).