The ENTER Academy: Conclusions from our meeting in June
ENTER has developed some important Research but also some training materials of great quality, despite sometimes there's a lack of follow up of these projects.
The idea of creating an ENTER Academy was born a year ago, to disseminate these materials and to keep our philosophy alive. The ENTER Academy pretends to create networks between mental health users and professionals with the provision of some online materials that will promote the information exchange.
During the days we spent in Slagelse we largely talked about these ideas. We had an Academy Meeting on June 7h with some ENTER members, and some interesting questions and new ideas appeared. There we reviewed some of the training packages we have already developed in ENTER, and we discussed many issues about setting an ENTER Academy using some of these materials.
Just a short review of the current state of the training materials we already have:
- OSCAR: this is the first project developed (from 2000 to 2004), about managing stress and violence at work. This consisted in a 4 days trainning and a book was printed in 2008. This material needs review, it's in English and Norwegian, and it is not available online. Some new streams came out from this, maybe some new themes for new research such as the prevention of violence, younger intervention, etc.
- EMILIA: this is the third and biggest project developed by ENTER. It consists in 11 training programs to train people at risk of being socially excluded, the trainings are both users of Mental Health Services and Professionals. It is currently on use in many sites, and the materials are in English, and some modules are translated into French, Spanish, Greek. The materials are available online and they need review and of course more dissemination, maybe some materials can be added to the project, and it would be interesting to make a follow up of the participants. The “Recovery” materials are still being used in some Universities and Health Institutions. www.emiliatraining.net
- CAMILLE: about improving professional skills of professionals working with mentally ill patients. It has 9 modules in 6 languages and these are available online with some audios, videos, and experience stories. There are also some available references in each page as well as email contacts. Some data needs to be reviewed and also to be adapted to each local zone. We need to review as well the intellectual property of some of the contents. This project seems to need more evaluation and the links should be reviewed. The experience cases can be improved using different genders, cultures, etc. It needs updating following good practices. www.camilletraining.net
- PROMISE: 9 guidelines fore training in Mental Health Promotion, it shows 10 criteria of quality to build the training to promote healthy living, to prevent suicide, depression and drug abuse. The contents need to be reviewed to be adapted to each country local authorities. There are some members that are not from ENTER in this projects. This needs updating as well. www.mailtodawson.wixsite/promise/home
After the Conference we had the annual AGM meeting on the 9th June.
These are some of the points discussed:
- Using the EMILIA materials in a first stage: includes good training materials (that need to be reviewed and translated).
- The Academy may include interactive e-learning, based on the same ENTER principles: maintain values and philosophy (we need more users participation)
- The Academy could promote the interaction between groups
- Possibility to download information and International Webinars.
- Virtual learning can facilitate the access to rural areas and to the more disabled
- Create a learning community: share things
- The Academy will add value to ENTER and can be powerful to spread its philosophy and change rules.
Some questions raised during the meeting:
- Peer to peer support is one of the strong points to keep in mind
- How should it be accredited
- Who will be the trainers
- Where to seek for funding
- We need someone to review the materials and implement them
- We need someone in charge of keeping the web up to date
- We need someone who helps in building the strategy, and for that, we need to ask each site for local legal advice.
- We need a commercial lead
- The Academy needs to be stablished as a legal entity: like an NGO? As a part of ENTER? Where should we set it?
- How to evaluate this
- Can ENTER consider selling the training?
- Should we integrate non-ENTER partners?
Conclusions and next steps:
A key discussion point at our 2017 AGM was developing a business plan: we need to review, refine, enhance, up-date the training.
The ENTER Academy Working Group will meet up regularly to prepare a proposal to develop a three stage approach:
Stage 1 (what we discussed during the meeting)
– setting up an archive of materials developed by ENTER to date
– refine, revisit and reformat our training assets
– look at new training programs we could co-create together
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Stage2
- Ask each local site for legal advice to set and register the Academy formally
- Establishing the governance structure
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Stage3
- Seek for funding
- Build the website with all the materials and dissemination
The current members of the Academy Working Group are: Carmel Clancy (Chair), Emmanuelle Jouet (Paris), Ian Dawson (Bodo), Agnes Higgins (Dublin), Alex Baldacchino (St Andrews), Silvia Rosado Figuerola (Barcelona), Panagiotis Chondros (Athens), Arunas Germanavicius (Vilnius),