The World Federation for Mental Health was founded in 1948 in the same era as the United Nations (UN) and the World Health Organization (WHO). This year, along with the NHS, it celebrates its 75th birthday.
1992 saw the first World Mental Health Day, so this year’s awareness day on 10 October is the 32nd, with a theme of “mental health is a universal human right.”
The WFMH asks us to: “Join us in this journey as we unite to raise awareness about the importance of mental health as an indispensable universal human right, with the vision of fostering a world that values and nurtures the well-being of all.”
Mental health is a universal human right
“Mental health must be squarely placed in a human rights framework to re-cast the aspiration for sound mental health as a fundamental human right. Ensuring access to mental health services must be an obligation and responsibility of state and global organisations which can no longer be ignored. Access to better living conditions, security, food, shelter and housing are all necessary for people's mental health. Mental health is a universal right to all citizens of the world and consistent with the 1948 founding principles of the World Federation for Mental Health.” Nassa Lozer, President, WFMH
Investment and transformation in mental health is needed to help stop the widespread human rights violations that people with mental health conditions continue to experience worldwide.
How rights to mental health can be respected
The World Federation for Mental Health believes that everyone, wherever they live, should receive appropriate and quality care if they are experiencing mental health distress (issues, problems, difficulties or struggles, call them what you will).
This includes the right to be protected from “known harms to mental health”, which would surely cover poverty, unemployment, lack of housing, adverse childhood experiences and any of the other social determinants of good mental health.
It also includes the right to freedom, “including the right of choice.”
More about human rights
1948 also saw the United Nations launch of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights aimed at all peoples and nations, setting out as it does fundamental human rights to be universally protected.
The United Nations is an international organisation made up of 193 member states:
“One place where the world's nations can gather together, discuss common problems and find shared solutions”.
Three years ago there was an important report to the Human Rights Council of the United Nations on a topic high on everyone’s agenda:
“The right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.”
The focus of the report was to set a “rights-based” global agenda for advancing the right to mental health.
In this 2020 United Nations report to the Human Rights Council, the Special Rapporteur addresses the need for a global agenda for mental health that is human rights-based. (Special rapporteurs are independent human rights experts whose expertise is called upon by the United Nations to report or advise on human rights from a thematic or country-specific perspective).
In this case the Special Rapporteur was Mr. Dainius Pūras from Lithuania,"a medical doctor and human rights advocate who has been actively involved during the last 30 years in the process of transforming public health policies and services, with special focus on the rights of children, persons with mental disabilities, and other groups in vulnerable situations.”
The report identifies that while many people understand their mental health challenges through a medical lens, many do not. It makes sense, then, that it is crucial to build space for “a diversity of creative approaches and experiences within and outside existing mental health systems.”
Some of the creative approaches which are referred to in the report include: “highly localised innovations in different resource settings around the world, such as Soteria House, Open Dialogue, peer-respite centres, medication-free wards, recovery communities and community development models”. Topics we have been covering on the Powys Mental Health blog for over 10 years now.
Examples from the blog:
Challenging the medical model of mental health distress
World Mental Health Day 2022 - make mental health and wellbeing for all a global priority
As the report suggests: “A quiet revolution has been occurring in neighbourhoods and communities worldwide. At the root of these alternatives is a deep commitment to human rights, dignity and non-coercive practices, all of which remain an elusive challenge in traditional mental health systems too heavily reliant on a biomedical paradigm”.
The report suggests that rather than describing such approaches as “alternatives”, which means they are more likely to be ignored because they are outside the mainstream, that they are called “rights-based supports.”
Key principles of rights-based support
We need to promote healthy, resilient communities where everyone feels supported and able to live a good life, not just the few with the most wealth. And promotion can take place not just in health settings but in all areas of our day-to-day lives - workplaces, schools, homes and communities.
The report identifies that while many people understand their mental health challenges through a medical lens, many do not. It makes sense, then, that it is crucial to build space for “a diversity of creative approaches and experiences within and outside existing mental health systems.”
Some of the creative approaches which are referred to in the report include: “highly localised innovations in different resource settings around the world, such as Soteria House, Open Dialogue, peer-respite centres, medication-free wards, recovery communities and community development models”. Topics we have been covering on the Powys Mental Health blog for over 10 years now.
Examples from the blog:
Challenging the medical model of mental health distress
World Mental Health Day 2022 - make mental health and wellbeing for all a global priority
As the report suggests: “A quiet revolution has been occurring in neighbourhoods and communities worldwide. At the root of these alternatives is a deep commitment to human rights, dignity and non-coercive practices, all of which remain an elusive challenge in traditional mental health systems too heavily reliant on a biomedical paradigm”.
The report suggests that rather than describing such approaches as “alternatives”, which means they are more likely to be ignored because they are outside the mainstream, that they are called “rights-based supports.”
Key principles of rights-based support
- Dignity and autonomy.
- Social inclusion.
- Participation.
- Equality and non-discrimination.
- Diversity of care.
- Underlying social and psychosocial determinants of mental health.
We need to promote healthy, resilient communities where everyone feels supported and able to live a good life, not just the few with the most wealth. And promotion can take place not just in health settings but in all areas of our day-to-day lives - workplaces, schools, homes and communities.
Action we can take
The report goes on to say:
“Movements of service users, of persons with psychosocial disabilities, of mad people, of people who hear voices, who are rights holders in all their diversity, must be at the forefront of efforts for rights-based change. Scaling up rights-based support within and outside existing mental health systems holds much promise for the changes that are needed.”
In one of 7 recommendations to member States the report recommends that they:
“Promote mental health by increasing financial support to sustainable, cross-cutting programmes that reduce poverty, inequalities, discrimination on all grounds and violence in all settings, so that the main determinants of mental health are effectively addressed.”
It all sounds very similar to the recommendations at the recent Bevan Commission conference which we attended: The Tipping Point - where next for health and care in Wales?
Steps in the right direction
I recently found out about the Welsh Health Equity Solutions platform. The platform has been designed as a resource to find data and solutions relating to health equity - “a gateway to data, evidence, health economics and modelling, policies, good practice, innovative tools and practical solutions to help improve population wellbeing and reduce the health equity gap in Wales and beyond.”
And finally
Alongside changes in policy and support, we need to look at how we provide care to people around their mental health. It’s not about asking what is “wrong” with someone, but what has “happened” to them. Until we reframe the questions, how can we start to work with someone to help find relevant solutions…?
What do you think about mental health as a universal human right? Let us know in the comments below.
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