Challenge
During the year 2021, the different services and entities that attend to mental health highlighted that the pandemic situation due to COVID19 had increased the emotional discomfort of the public (fear, uncertainty, anxiety, losses, etc.). Part of this discomfort was due to the socio-economic consequences of the pandemic, such as job loss, ERTE situations or housing vulnerability, but also to the fact that most community resources that served as social support for many people (homes, civic centers, sports centers, CAP and Social Services support groups, etc.) had to be temporarily closed or could open with many restrictions. Faced with this situation, Barcelona City Council decided to create a new resource to deal with situations of emotional distress in the adult population from a preventive and community approach.
Answer
Through the information gathered from the services of the public mental health network and other key agents, it was proposed to create a psychosocial support service with the following objectives:
a) attend to the emotional and psychological discomfort of the adult population,
b) recover and strengthen social support networks and
c) detect and attend to more serious situations of discomfort that require more specific interventions.
This proposal has materialized in the new Konsulta’m +22 service, which currently has six points of care in the city of Barcelona.
Charles Deluvio picture
