Community Psychology in action to promote young people mental health

The promotion of mental health could be realized through the participation of the community, but for people with mental illness this is more difficult to achieve. Several activities have be planned by Public Mental Health Service (PMHS) and the Community Psychology Research Team of University of Florence to promote mental health for the whole community and social inclusion, improving networks between PMHS and local community. In this contribution are presented three steps of an intervention exploring problems, bridging different networks and building social ties. The first one involved 228 teenagers to investigate their specific attitudes about mental disease. The second one, a community based experience carried out by means of social theatre, collected different perceptions to investigate the psychological value of this practice. Twenty-nine participants were involved (professionals of PMHS, patients’ relatives, audience and actors). The third step involved thirteen professionals of PMHS in a focus group to investigate their opinions about the best way to provide psychological help for young patients, caring their social inclusion. Methods have been quantitative for the first step, qualitative for the second and the third step. Findings showed the difficult to reach young people with psychological troubles and – at the same time – the importance of innovative experiences to and create links between the health services and the local community.