The Mobile Team for Psychosocial Support in the Community

This project was initiated as a result of the Twinning Project, which was conducted from 2016 to 2017 between the Republic of Croatia and the Kingdom of the Netherlands. This project, called Ensuring optimal health care for people with mental health disorders identified the need at the state level for the formation of mobile psychosocial teams where peer experts would work together with experts in by profession.

Apart from individual and isolated examples, Croatia has not yet started practicing implementation of peer experts in the process of recovery for people with psychosocial challenges at the state level. On the other hand, as a result of the implementation of the Twinning project, the process of deinstitutionalization of psychiatry has already begun in Croatia in the form of the formation of the first mobile teams for psychosocial support in the community. The aim of our project The Mobile Team for Psychosocial Support in the Community is to assist this process by ensuring the availability of educated and certified peer experts.

For years, members of Madnessociation have been volunteering to help other members and their families. This often requires daily visits that last a couple of hours. This time is spent in the homes of people who need support, and the reasons are diverse: enabling members of family to go to work, shopping, paying bills, providing leisure time for the benefit of their family members, providing support to people in acute conditions...

With ‘The Mobile Team for Psychosocial Support in the Community' project, we want to create quality and stable team of peer experts who can thus act in the form of independent peer support or as part of a comprehensive mobile team made out of  peer experts and experts by profession.

Team members will in the long-term plan be trained in providing peer support and to assist in creating a personal W.R.A.P. (Whole recovery action plan). The team itself has three distinct visions of action: continuous home visits, daily stay with people in acute conditions and one-off interventions in crisis situations.

The project coordinator is Association Ludruga in partnership with the association Perspekta and Trešnjevka Culture Centre.

The project is financially supported by the Ministry of Demography, Family, Youth and Social Policy, and it derived from the project " Mental health in the community - therapy on a human scale " carried out by Association Ludruga for four years with the support of the City of Zagreb.