Por Redaccion 
Alicante, February 12, 2025. The Alicante City Council is advancing in the participatory development of the first Municipal Mental Health Plan with the start this Friday, February 14, of the diagnostic phase, which will include six open meetings to the public, coordinated by the Department of Social Welfare and the Comprehensive Care and Person-Centered Research Group at the University of Alicante (GIAICP). The workshops will focus on discussing issues and proposing initiatives to improve the mental health situation of a series of population groups that have been considered a priority by the steering group created in the first phase, the participatory definition of the project. After the meetings, the phase of prioritizing the action proposals that arise in these workshops will begin, through open citizen surveys.
The City Council signed an agreement with the University of Alicante (UA) for the development of this participatory plan that will result in the document on which the first Municipal Mental Health Plan of the city will be based. A plan that aims to develop strategies and lines of action that optimize local care in this field. After an initial phase of participatory project definition, in which the steering group and the technical monitoring committee were created, the participatory diagnostic phase now begins. The roadmap aims to start the diagnosis with minors and youth and continue advancing in the rest of vulnerable groups (people with addictions, migrants, lonely) to end with the elderly.
The Councilor for Social Welfare, Begoña León, explains that the meetings and surveys will allow the people of Alicante to «discuss the mental health situation and the needs in terms of prevention, awareness, and care that exist in Alicante to design, in a participatory manner, the action plans that the City Council must develop to offer appropriate responses and programs.» The research director, Clarisa Ramos-Feijóo, highlights «the significant citizen participation that we have had during the months of October, November, and December by the steering group, with an attendance of around 50 people at the different meetings, altruistically and enthusiastically, which demonstrates the interest of the entire population in responding to the mental health needs in our city,» she points out.
Meeting Schedule
Between February and March 2025, six citizen diagnostic meetings will be held:
– Meeting on mental health and childhood and adolescence. Friday, February 14, from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., at the Gastón Castelló community social center.
– Meeting on mental health and people with addictions. Friday, February 21, from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., at the Gastón Castelló community social center.
– Meeting on mental health and people in situations of social vulnerability. Friday, February 28, from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., at the Gastón Castelló community social center.
– Meeting on mental health and people in situations of unwanted loneliness. Friday, March 7, from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., at the Felicidad Sánchez community social center.
– Meeting on mental health and foreign people. Friday, March 14, from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., at the Felicidad Sánchez community social center.
– Meeting on mental health and elderly people. Friday, March 21, from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., at the Isla de Cuba community social center.
In each of the six meetings aimed at a population group, discussions will be held on how five key topics defined by the steering group in mental health affect them: social rights (housing, employment, education, access to culture); awareness (information, sensitization, prevention); social inclusion (discrimination and prejudices, human rights, participation); social protection (social health care, resources); community support (support and accompaniment networks).
During each meeting, problems, needs, and action proposals to improve the mental health situation in each population group will be discussed. Subsequently, the action proposals presented at each meeting will be summarized, and it is planned that in May, citizen surveys will be launched for the people of Alicante to vote on the most appropriate ones. The results will be compiled into a document that will form the basis of the first Municipal Mental Health Plan of Alicante.