Measures taken by the Commission to improve mental health care for children and adolescents

Subject: Measures taken by the Commission to improve mental health care for children and adolescents

In the last two years, according to the 2022 edition of Health at a Glance: Europe, around half of young people in the EU reported unmet needs for mental health care services. In Romania, approximately 22 000 children and adolescents live with a diagnosis of mental illness.

1. In this context, what are the measures taken by the Commission for the prevention and early diagnosis of mental illnesses and to improve mental health care services for children and adolescents throughout the European Union?

2. What are the particular EU financing opportunities available to tackle these challenges, and to what degree could we see them developing in the near future?

Submitted: 10.10.2023

Answer given by Ms Kyriakides on behalf of the European Commission (30 November 2023)

The Commission adopted the communication on a comprehensive approach to mental health (1) on 7 June 2023. It identifies 20 flagship initiatives and EUR 1.23 billion of opportunities for financial support from several EU funding instruments.

It focuses particularly on supporting vulnerable groups, such as children and young people. Four flagship initiatives have been identified: setting up a child and youth mental health network; developing a prevention toolkit; addressing key health determinants; developing tools, e.g. on healthy lifestyle and mental health resilience; and better protection for children in the digital sphere, online and on social media.

Under the EU4Health programme (2), funds are available for Member States and stakeholders to implement projects. Examples of ongoing actions are best practices such as ‘Ice hearts’ (3) and ‘Let’s talk about children’ (4), each worth EUR 4 million; and psychological first aid to displaced people/children from Ukraine via a contribution agreement of EUR 28 million with the Red Cross.

A call for best and promising practices on mental health (5), including on children and young people, is now closed and proposals are being analysed. As a next step the Commission will support Member States that wish to transfer a best or promising practice into their country.

1 ∙ ⸱ https://health.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2023-06/com_2023_298_1_act_en.pdf

2 ∙ ⸱ https://health.ec.europa.eu/funding/eu4health-programme-2021-2027-vision-healthier-european-union_en

3 ∙ ⸱ https://www.icehearts.eu/project

4 ∙ ⸱ https://letstalk.utu.fi/

5 ∙ ⸱ https://health.ec.europa.eu/latest-updates/call-best-and-promising-practices-mental-health-2023-07-12_en