CoActD3.1: Report on Knowledge Coalition Building. Mental Health Care.

DISCLAIMER: The information and views set out in this report are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of the European Union. Neither the European Union institutions and bodies nor any person acting on their behalf may be held responsible for the use which may be made of the information contained therein.

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The CoAct (Co-designing Citizen Social Science for Collective Action) project proposes to face social global issues by placing citizens in a vulnerable situation at the centre of the research. This approach represents a new understanding of Citizen Social Science (CSS), as participatory research co-designed with citizen groups sharing a social concern. 

One of the social issues targeted is Mental Health Care (R&I Action #1, WP3) and this report corresponds to Deliverable D3.1 Report on Knowledge Coalition building. The research background of this R&I Action has been constructed based of the different but complementary experiences of the two main CoAct partners involved. While the OpenSystems research group (Universitat de Barcelona) has built a research methodology based on Citizen Social Science and citizen’s participation, Federació Salut Mental Catalunya has decades of experience in community mental health care activism and cooperative projects, situating the individuals withan experience of mental health and their families at the centre of this process. Based on these complementary experiences, the research has been oriented to mental health social support networks, referring to people's social environment, which is generated informally, not professionally. 

The report describes the different step of the Knowledge Coalition building, formed by representatives of public administrations, civil society organisations and co-researchers, acting in representation of their institutions.  After a detailed mapping of the local, national and international institutions, a comprehensive engagement process was built, that resulted in the participation of 65 individuals representing 50 institutions and the realization of a total of 6 meetings, that were conducted online due to COVID-19 pandemic. During this process, the sharing of experiences and perspectives allowed to build a rich and detailed knowledge map concerning the current situation of the mental health social support networks and of the possible future actions needed. This knowledge map will be used in the next step of the research process: the research co-creation sessions involving individuals with an experience of mental health and their families as Co-Researchers.