Mental Health for All: Implementation of Volunteering Guidelines

Project duration
July 2023 – December 2023

Donor
Ministry of Social Security and Labour of the Republic of Lithuania

A human rights-based approach to mental health believes that individuals experiencing mental health difficulties know best what support they need in order to navigate their recovery. Their views must be taken into account when developing a national mental health system. Only they themselves, by sharing their experiences, can overcome mental health stigma in society. Based on this point of view, our organization has a long-term goal of involving the represented persons and their relatives as volunteers. Especially involving them in activities such as making recommendation for decision makers, improving services, research, forming organization’s strategy and, most importantly, public events and discussions aimed at changing societal attitudes.

The aim of the project

To create and implement a volunteering development model that will allow strengthening the organization’s ability to systematically include represented persons with lived experience in their activities and thus increase their impact, solving the problem of mental health stigma and literacy in society.

The aim will be achieved through the implementation of the following activities:

1. Developing strategic guidelines for a volunteering program that would attract a particularly stigmatized group in society – persons with experience of mental health problems and their relatives. The guidelines will define the fields of volunteering, nature, directions of management, daily volunteer management processes, and communication principles. Legal documents necessary for the regulation of volunteering developed during the project will also be included in the guidelines.

2. Improving employees‘ volunteer management and psychological resilience skills, which are necessary for working with a vulnerable group.

3. Testing the volunteering model. Involvement of two volunteers with lived experience in organizational activities – in particular reducing the stigma of mental health and increasing public mental health literacy. Feedback will be collected and the model improved accordingly.

4. Carrying out advocacy actions, focused on decision-makers and interested persons, in order to achieve systematic access and funding for the development of such initiatives.

Project budget: 14 980 Eur
Project code: NVOK00212