Baltic Sea Region Mental Health Platform
Duration: 2025 – ongoing
Geographical area: Denmark, Estonia, Poland, Sweden
Change starts where life happens!
Across the Baltic Sea Region, advancing mental health begins on the local level and grows strong through cross-sectoral collaboration.The BSR Mental Health project platform outlines a modern healthcare system for the region, helping public authorities integrate non-clinical cultural, artistic, and physical activities to enhance mental and social well-being for people of all ages.
BSR Mental Health consolidates outcomes from 14 EU projects: Arts on Prescription, KidsLikeUs, MentalHealthMatters, SchoolChanger, BalticSe@nioR, BalticSe@nioR 2.0, SAFE, ABCs for Mental Health, Icehearts Europe, Operating grant in the field of EU4Health, Arts on Prescription in Norway, Economy of Well-being of People, Roadmap to improve the health and well-being of the ageing population (AgeFLAG).
Read more: https://interreg-baltic.eu/project/bsr-mental-health/
Solutions for Age-Friendly Employer – SAFE
Tackles ageism in workplaces and will provide employers with a general framework for age-friendly practices
Duration: 2024 – ongoing
Geographic area: Estonia, Finland, Sweden
Summary: Across the Baltic Sea Region countries, more and more people are working later in life. Due to their chronological age, older workers however often face ageism in the form of prejudice, discrimination, or neglect. The SAFE cooperation aims to strengthen and improve employment opportunities for employees aged 55+ specifically focusing on the health and wellness sectors.
Developing competence and learning new things throughout the life course strengthens our workability and improves our overall well-being. In the current labour market more discussion and change are needed to build diverse work communities. In this project, we support the construction of age-friendly work communities without forgetting the different generations.
The project is financed by the European Regional Development Fund through Interreg Central Baltic 2021-2027
Find out more here
Arts on Prescription
The challenge that public authorities face when planning and implementing such a programme lies in the underdeveloped cooperation between the culture and health sector, the lack of knowledge on how to set up, organise and evaluate a programme and the lack of long-term financing. The partners of the project “Arts on Prescription in the Baltic Sea Region” jointly developed a model programme that is based on state-of-the-art evidence and experience, but adaptable to different local conditions and public health systems. The programme was piloted by local and regional public authorities in cooperation with cultural institutions and evaluated for its health effects, organisational set-up and economic benefits. The arts on prescription model is then transferred to other cities and regions who are supported with an online practitioner’s guide and a rent-an-expert programme. Moreover, the project initiated a dialogue with national authorities and health insurance funds in order to improve the structural support and financing options for arts on prescription.
MentalHealthMatters
Seeks to increase the resilience of the workforce by tackling psychosocial risks and building psychosocial resources in workplaces.
Duration: 2023 – 2025
Geographic area: Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Norway, Sweden
Summary: Mental health of employees is an emerging concern for people in the Baltic Sea Region. Even before the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, half of EU workers considered stress to be common in their workplace but to be economically resilient, companies and societies need a mentally resilient work force.
In the past, occupational health and safety (OSH) legislation standards and education have mainly focused on physical hazards and accident prevention and not paid enough attention to psychosocial risk assessment, health promotion and prevention measures. The Mental Health Matters project wants to change this.
The project set up national and transnational communities of practice (policymakers, educators and social partners, employers and workers’ organisations) together with researchers and practical experts in the field of OSH and mental health (e.g. occupational physicians or psychologists) to analyse the status quo and discuss needed improvements.
The project developed an online “first-aid kit” to support owners and managers of small and medium-sized enterprises that do not have access to OSH professionals in assessing psychosocial risks and taking preventive action, and a roadmap for Improvement of OSH policy and education.
MentalHealthMatters receives financial support from the Interreg Baltic Sea Region and is co-funded by the European Union
Find out more here
Economy of Wellbeing of People
Duration: 2023 – 2024
Geographical area: Estonia, Germany, Latvia, Sweden
Economy of Wellbeing of People is the first step for a flagship platform for collaboration between stakeholders in the region to tackle Health, Education and Working life challenges in the Baltic Sea Region. The platform advocates for an inclusive growth and well-being agenda in all policies.
The project has 4 phases:
- Developing a methodology and model for stakeholder mapping and analysis, as well as for the best process of transnational, multi-level cross-sectoral collaboration.
- Identifying relevant stakeholders across EUSBSR countries and beyond.
- Analyzing stakeholders to assess their potential contributions to the policy-action process, and the added value they will gain from collaborating.
- Drawing up an application to get further funding to launch the flagship in 2024.
Project coordinators: The NDPHS Secretariat (Policy Area Health) and Association Norden Sweden – Föreningen Norden i Sverige (Policy Area Education)
Project partners: The Public Health Association of Latvia (PHAL), Connected Health Cluster Tallinn Science park Tehnopol Foundation, Riga Planning Region, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Economic Education Institute.