You will find a selection of Society and CAP news in this section. Sign up to our newsletter for monthly updates directly to your inbox and follow us on X (formerly Twitter) and LinkedIn to keep up to date.
The EU Commission is working on an initiative that aims to support the development and strengthening of integrated child protection systems in the EU.
Focused on children’s needs, the initiative aims to encourage all relevant authorities and services to work together in a holistic way, from preventing abuse of and violence towards children, to protecting them. It is also intended to present how to better use existing EU tools (laws, policies, funding) to make child protection systems more integrated and robust, by avoiding silos.
As part of the initiative, they ran a public "Have your say" consultation to which ESCAP provided feedback. Read our response here.
You can read more about the initiative and all submitted responses on the "Have your say" website of the EU Commission.
Yesterday, a new Eurobarometer on mental health was published which shows that nine in ten respondents (89%) consider that mental health promotion is as important as physical health promotion. At the same time, less than half of respondents agree that people with mental health issues receive the same level of care as those with a physical condition. Moreover, almost half of respondents (46%) experienced an emotional or psychosocial problem, such as feeling depressed or anxious, in the past twelve months. More than half of these respondents (54%) with a mental health issue have not received help from a professional, according to the survey.
The Flash Eurobarometer was conducted between 14 June 2023 and 21 June 2023. A total of 26,501 respondents aged 15 and over from 27 EU Member States were interviewed via computer-assisted web interviewing.
WHO-OHCHR launch new guidance to improve laws addressing human rights abuses in mental health care
Ahead of tomorrow's World Mental Health Day, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR) have jointly launched a new guidance, entitled “Mental health, human rights and legislation: guidance and practice”, to support countries to reform legislation in order to end human rights abuses and increase access to quality mental health care.
The General Assembly of the EU Horizon FAMILY project took place in Lausanne, Switzerland. This 5 year project "Running in the FAMILY – Understanding and predicting the intergenerational transmission of mental illness" started a year ago and it was great to meet with all project partners and find out about the progess in the different work packages.
Follow the project on X and LinkedIn and/or visit the project website for updates.
A new, free online course "A life with ADHD" from the University of Geneva and including international experts Samuele Cortese, David Coghill and Tobias Banaschewski can now be accessed on YouTube and Coursera. The course was developed for people affected by attention deficit disorder, their families, and the professionals who care for them. It is available in English and French.
More information - as well as other resources on ADHD and other disorders - can be found in our Resource Centre on the ESCAP website.
Methylphenidate for ADHD is not on the WHO Model List of Essential Medicines. A correspondence arguing that it should be has been published in The Lancet Psychiatry. Together with 15 other national/international associations, ESCAP endorsed this correspondence.
More than 1,600 delegates from all over the world attended the 20th International ESCAP Congress and enjoyed an outstanding scientific programme and the personal exchange and networks with colleagues.
On our YouTube Channel, you can watch interviews with some of our Keynote and State of the Art lectures as well as the Opening and Closing Ceremony of the Congress.
Review of the congress including photos and our poster prize winners.
Jörg Fegert has started his term as ESCAP President. Jörg joined the Board in 2019. Before taking on the role of President, he chaired the ESCAP Policy Division.
Jörg is based in Ulm, Germany and his personal field of interest is care of traumatized children and child protection issues in medicine and in an interdisciplinary background.
We warmly welcome our new Board members:
