First Meeting of the WHO Global Forum For Community Mental Health

30-31 May, 2007 in Geneva

Group picture showing the participants of the first WHO Global Forum For Community Mental Health, including 5 staff members of CBM.
CBM was represented by Vice President for Global Alliances, Jeya Wilson (middle), Monika Brenes (Policy and Consultancy) (second from the left), Birgit Radtke (second from the right/middle), Andrew Mohanraj (first from the right) and Istvan Patkai (CBM Advisors for Mental Health) (second from the right/bottom), who gave brief presentations on plenary sessions.
The first meeting of the WHO Global Forum on Community Mental Health on 30-31 May in Geneva provided the opportunity to share information of consumers and those involved in good practices of community mental health worldwide. Around fifty people participated. Responding to the urgent need for countries to provide a network of community mental health services, a Global Forum for Community Mental Health had been initiated by the WHO with CBM support in 2005.

Platform For Information Sharing About Community Mental Health

The aim of the meeting was to make the Forum more widely known, which has the mission "to provide a caring supportive network for all those interested in promoting community mental health services for people with serious mental illnesses. This forum provides a foundation for sharing information, providing mutual support, and a sense of belonging for users, families, providers, and all who are interested in shifting mental health care from long term institutions to effective community-based care." The Global Forum partners with existing organizations sharing this mission.

Financial And Professional Support From CBM

Along with financial support the expertise provided by CBM mental health workers was also acknowledged and the work in Indonesia and Sri Lanka appreciated. In Aceh Province, Indonesia, CBM is involved in training, capacity building, organizing services, policy development as well as at grassroots level of implementation. In Sri Lanka, CBM supports Basic Needs and some counseling programmes.

A process of enlargement of the membership started with the participation of service users’ groups. “The Forum can be used as a platform to share regional and country experiences in community mental health and to update and improve CBM practices in this important field of work”, reports Dr. Istvan Patkai, CBM’s Mental Health Advisor for Southeast Asia, who is based on the Philippines.

Topics of Discussion

  • the significance of the preventive and promotive dimensions of mental health;
  • the significance of service users and self help groups’ involvement;
  • anti-stigma programmes in the communities,
  • the necessity to integrate mental health within the primary health care system and
  • rehabilitating long-stay mental hospital patients in the communities.


Read more: Mental Health Disorders - A global problem addressed within and with the help of the community
Services for People with Neuro-Psychiatric Impairments

Further information: Global Forum For Community Mental Health
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The Facts (WHO)


  • Hundreds of millions of people worldwide are affected by mental, behavioural, neurological and substance use disorders. For example, estimates made by WHO in 2002 showed that 154 million people globally suffer from depression and 25 million people from schizophrenia; 91 million people are affected by alcohol use disorders and 15 million by drug use disorders. A recently published WHO report shows that 50 million people suffer from epilepsy and 24 million from Alzheimer and other dementias.

  • Mental, neurological and behavioural disorders are common to all countries and cause immense suffering. People with these disorders are often subjected to social isolation, poor quality of life and increased mortality. These disorders are the cause of staggering economic and social costs.

  • Most middle and low-income countries devote less than 1% of their health expenditure to mental health. Consequently mental health policies, legislation, community care facilities, and treatments for people with mental illness are not given the priority they deserve.