Webinar - The EFPA Mental Health Toolkit: scaling and speeding up mental health promotion and prevention using a whole systems approach

Increases in mental health difficulties in people of all ages continues to rise. While resources continue to be put into developing effective treatments, the areas of prevention and promotion continue to be under resourced, underfunded and undervalued. This is difficult to understand given that prevention and promotion are proven to increase well-being and to reduce psychological difficulties, e.g. to reduce the rate of suicide, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, obesity and a wide range of other conditions.

The aim of the talk will be to highlight and prioritize the areas of promotion and prevention as a matter of urgency. The talk will also strive towards the following objectives: 1) to define clearly the areas of prevention and prevention in mental health; 2) to determine the current status of prevention and promotion internationally; 3) to demonstrate the benefits of both prevention and promotion; 4) to provide a clear, comprehensive tool-kit on prevention and promotion for policy makers, clinicians and others to use in the area of mental health.

During the development of the EFPA Mental Health Toolkit research was carried out to determine what prevention and promotion in the area of mental health means in theory and in practice, to highlight the benefits along with areas of caution, to explore how to increase funding and to develop a tool kit which will be used and valued by policy makers, clinicians and/or others to make a real difference in helping people cope with and/or prevent mental health difficulties. 

It is clear that priorities and resources are predominantly focused on treatment rather than prevention and promotion. The work involved in developing this EFPA Mental Health Toolkit highlights the necessity of policy makers, clinicians and others deliberately prioritizing the areas of prevention and promotion for the benefits of all.

About the speaker: 

Claire Hayes is passionate in the areas of coping, prevention and resilience. From 2023 to 2025 she was privileged to chair EFPA’s subcommittee on prevention and promotion as part of EFPA’s Standing Committee on Psychology in Health.  She continues to build on her combined forty years of training and experience as a clinical psychologist, lecturer, author and teacher to help individuals, groups and organizations to understand the particular nature of their stressors and to apply evidence-based psychological principles to help them cope with these.  She has written widely on how to help people cope with stress and has become a regular contributor to Irish national media including current affairs television and radio programs and national press.

Resources:

Presentation of the speaker and recording available here :