What is mental health improvement?

Mental health improvement is about creating opportunities to enhance the mental well-being of individuals, families, organisations and communities, and also a set of principles which recognise that how people feel is a significant influence on their health. Interventions to build social support for excluded and isolated groups, to reduce stress in the workplace, to tackle bullying in schools, to increase access to green, open spaces and to reduce fear of crime all contribute to health gain through improving mental well-being, in addition to any impact they may have on preventing mental disorders. Therefore many people in our community actively contribute to mental health improvement though they might not consider it the focus of their work.

Mental health improvement can also significantly improve the health of people living with a mental health problem and has a key role in challenging discrimination and increasing understanding of mental health issues.
 

Mental health improvement works at three levels:

• Individual/Family – by increasing emotional resilience through interventions designed to promote self-esteem, life and coping skills, e.g. communicating, negotiating, relationship and parenting skills.
• Community/Organisational - by increasing social support, social inclusion and participation, improving neighbourhood environments, developing health and social services which support mental health eg. anti-bullying strategies at school, workplace health, community safety, childcare and self-help networks.
• Population/National - by developing initiatives to reduce discrimination and inequalities and to promote access to education and training.