WFMH leaders call for change shaped by lived experience

WFMH President Sabine Bährer-Kohler delivered the opening remarks, thanking the organisers and participants for their commitment. Drawing on her national and international advocacy work, she described how personal accounts from people with lived experience have challenged conventional professional approaches, revealed the need for change and helped bring about reform.

She emphasised that lived experience perspectives help organisations examine and improve their work, build connections and sustain joint advocacy. She encouraged open, in-depth discussion, including differing views, and recalled WHO’s call to deepen commitment to mental health, reshape the environments that affect it and strengthen care systems. Noting WFMH’s advocacy since 1948, she called for lived experience voices and collective action with international organisations, associations and policymakers.

Dr Roberto Mezzina, WFMH Regional Vice President Europe, participated as an expert panellist. He stressed the importance of alliances among professionals, people using services, carers and communities in changing mental health practice. Together with WHO’s Dr Mark van Ommeren, he highlighted the concentration of resources in long-stay institutions and the need to strengthen community alternatives.

Putting lived experience at the heart of mental health reform

The discussion called for equal recognition of lived experience expertise and shared decision-making from the outset. Examples from Pakistan and New Zealand illustrated ways to embed participation in policy and legislative processes. Sustained trust, safe participation and feedback on how contributions are used were identified as essential to effective co-design.

The webinar marked the launch of WHO’s Supporting the transition to community-based mental health and social care: practical guide to the deinstitutionalization of psychiatric hospitals. The guide addresses adults experiencing long hospital stays and sets out actions to reduce admissions and lengths of stay, improve care within hospitals, and support discharge and community participation. It calls for coordinated reform of policies, funding and services, including housing and social support, to protect autonomy and human rights.

Bringing lived experience advocates and global partners together

Alongside WFMH’s representatives, panellists included Grace Gatera, Co-Chair of GMHAN’s Deinstitutionalisation Expert by Experience Action Group; Anto Agus Sugianto of Aves Mental Health, Indonesia; Kerri Butler of Take Notice, New Zealand; Dr Mark van Ommeren and Dr Aiysha Malik of WHO; and Ali Hasnain of UnitedGMH. The partnership connected international guidance with lived experience perspectives and national reform efforts.

Watch the webinar and explore further resources

• Watch the full webinar recording
• Read the GMHAN webinar summary
• Access the WHO practical guide