Barbora Chvátalová

Barbora Chvátalová obtained Master´s degree in psychology at the Faculty of Arts of Masaryk University. . As a member of Project SPOLU has led cognitive training, coordinate one department at the psychiatric clinic in Brno and currently works within organizational team as an education coordinator. She is interested in assertive community treatment, borders between normality and psychopatology and holistic approach towards to clients. These themes are also reflected in her dissertation project, which is currently working on.

Jana Muroňová

Jana Muroňová finishes Master´s degree in psychology at the Faculty of Arts of Masaryk University. Her thesis topic is „Comparison of effectiveness of various psychotherapeutic approaches at the first-epizode psychosis“. She is a founder and main coordinator of Project SPOLU. She spent one year studying psychology with the focus on innovation and sustainability at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia. As a professional alpine ski instructor has worked in Italy, Switzerland and Australia.

Workshop: Abstract

How to change the mental health care system?

The number of mentally ill people in the Czech Republic is rapidly growing, yet the system of care is already unsuitable and outdated. As a part of currently ongoing reform of psychiatry it´s being emphasized the need to significantly strengthen the community aspect of care. The optimal form of this type of care is still being discussed.

During our workshop we would like to open space for sharing experiences with psychiatric care, find out what has proved useful and what not within current system and together contemplate how we could contribute to its positive change. We will introduce what we´ve done in these terms so far: we´ve founded innovative Project SPOLU, which is linking students of psychology, psychiatric patients and mental health care professionals. After more than 3 years of its existence we´re mediating volunteer practices in four Czech cities for more than 250 students, who regularly and long-term organize free-time activities for hospitalized patients. Newly we want to involve also students of medicine and psychiatric care users and target for example university students, who are struggling with mental problems.

We believe that we can all relate to the topic of mental health and we need to take responsibility for it. How to connect separate parties and find common grounds? How to fight the stigma of mental diseases and increase awareness? Can we co-operatively improve the mental health care system?