Community-based action and prevention programs
The community-based programs carried out by the center entail educating and training the general population as well as selected target groups with regards to mental health.
Community-based action and prevention programs
One of the
cornerstones of our philosophy is community-based prevention and mental health promotion. At Vima Koino we support organizations who intervene at the community level as well as create and carry out educational programs aimed at reaching the community. The programs carried out by the center include educational and training seminars for both the general population as well as selected target groups such as parents’ associations, teachers, local government officials, health professionals, local associations, and other organized groups. These programs include lectures, discussions, seminars, publications and broadcasts in the local media, creation and distribution of printed materials, organization of volunteer and patient family groups. The aim is to promote a positive attitude towards mental illness, the mentally ill, the community mental health services, and de-stigmatize mental illness through mental health promotion.
Since the start of its activities, Vima Koino has cooperated with the following organizations:
- Local Mental Health Promotion Group of Nea Smyrni Municipality, which we are members of and regularly support organizationally and practically mental health prevention and promotion programs.
- Onassis Hospital, where we provided Psychological first aid training to hospital’s security personnel.
- Onassis Foundation, where members of our team carried out a mental health intervention aiming at populations of disadvantaged minors through the program “Safe Steps” whose purpose was to carry out therapeutic interventions through sport/play. The beneficiaries were refugees and unaccompanied minors and minors living in a child-protection structure Our team collaborated with three different structures to implement this intervention.
- Pedopolis Agia Varvara, where we have undertaken the psychological and psychiatric support of the institution’s beneficiaries, which are female minors/young adult abuse victims.
- Municipality of Nea Smyrni, where we have undertaken the support of the working staff by offering clinical supervision and educational seminars.
- NGO Evolution of Life, where we have undertaken the psychological and psychiatric support of teenagers/young adults who are the beneficiaries of the organization.
- American College of Greece, supporting the college’s mental health center with psychiatrist services and providing 24-hour coverage for students in case of mental health needs.