On May 22, it took place in the Czech Parliament round table on the international context of mental health. At the invitation of the vice-chairman of the Health Committee MUDr. by Tom Philip, Ph.D., MBA, the CEO of the Mother and Child Institute Foundation, Dorota Kleszczewska PhD, gave a presentation to the Czech Parliament regarding the “Heads Up” project, coordinated by the Foundation.

At the invitation of the Foundation, the meeting was also attended by prof. Ph.D. Małgorzata Janas-Kozik, plenipotentiary of the Minister of Health for the reform of child and adolescent psychiatry. Prof. Janas-Kozik talked about the reform thanks to which, in recent years, three reference levels of a network of medical entities in child and adolescent psychiatry have been created in Poland, as well as the introduction of new specializations in the education of medical staff tailored to the needs of the child, teenager and family. The presentation was an opportunity to familiarize Czech legislators with the solutions that have been introduced in Poland.

During the meeting, a speech was also delivered by M.Sc. Alena Müllerová, president of the association Nová Sympathea: Experiences of informal caregivers of patients with mental illness in the Czech Republic and cooperation with the European Federation of Associations of Families of People with Mental Illness EUFAMI.

After the substantive presentations, there was an expert debate in which representatives of the HeadsUP project from Czech Republic and Slovakia and leading experts dealing with mental health took part:

• Doc. PaedDr. Klaudia Zusková, PhD., M.Sc. Ferdinand Salonna, PhD. – Pavel Jozef Šafárik University in Košice, team members of the Erasmus+ Heads Up international project – Slovakia,
• Mgr. Zdeněk Hamřík, Ph.D., Head of the Department of Recreation, Faculty of Physical Culture, Palacky University in Olomouc, member of the Erasmus+ Heads Up – Czech international project team,
• RNDr. Jitka Soukupová, deputy director of the Institute of Health Information and Statistics,
• PhDr. Ivan Duškov, deputy director of the General Health Insurance Company,
• PhDr. Melanie Zajacová, Ph.D., head of the Department of Social Work, Faculty of Philosophy, Charles University,
• PhDr. Petr Winkler, Ph.D., director of the National Institute of Mental Health.

Partners of the Heads Up project – representatives of University of Kosice and University of Olomouc, not only organized the meeting, but also took an active part in it and talked about the Project.

Afterwards, an international meeting of Heads Up partners was held, during which we discussed our current activities and next steps. It was a very fruitful and busy day!