Introduction and overview for 03-04

NSF Standard One states that health and social services should:

• promote mental health for all, working with individuals and communities;
• combat discrimination against individuals and groups with mental health problems, and promote their social inclusion.

Many people working locally have felt a sense of isolation in advocating for mental health promotion. To help address this, NIMHE is bringing together a national Mental Health Promotion Advisory Group whose aims will be to:

• raise the national profile of the commitment in Standard One of the National Service Framework for Mental Health, liaising closely with the Board of Advisers tackling the other component of Standard One, namely stigma and discrimination against people with mental health problems;
• support Goal 2 in the National Suicide Prevention Strategy: �To promote mental well-being in the wider population� as part of the effort to reduce deaths from suicide and undetermined injury by 20% by 2010;
• assemble and disseminate evidence of effective interventions in promoting the mental health of the whole population at national, regional and local level;
• develop resources to support the work of NSF Standard One leads at regional and local level;
• work with the Department of Health and other Government Departments on the wider determinants of mental health, in the context of the Wanless report Securing Good Health for the Whole Population, the Public Health Consultation Choosing Health? and the Public Health Programme on Tackling Inequalities;
• establish baseline measures of the mental health of the population and/or its known determinants and a methodology for monitoring progress.