On 7th September, the Expert Platform (EP) on Mental Health, of which the European Brain Council is a member, met in Brussels to discuss its activities.
The Expert Platform brings together mental health experts, representatives of major organizations involved in mental health in Europe, as well as representatives of the European institutions as observers, with the goal of raising awareness on depression at EU and national levels, as well as supporting the implementation of the “European Pact on Mental Health and Well-Being.”
In its meeting, the Platform discussed the follow- up on the general points as discussed during its previous meeting, including the need for a closer cooperation among its members to speed up the visibility of depression focused activities. Furthermore, the Platform commented on the progress of its two ongoing projects, namely its paper on the unification of suicide prevention strategies (EUSPP) and the Actograph Depression App.
In its last panel, the Platform discussed its plan for the upcoming years. Among other, it was suggested that more focus should be directed at current events, namely the refugee and financial crisis, as the trauma arising from both play enormous role and places unprecedented burden on the victims as well as the whole society.