From practice to policy: scaling regional mental health action across Europe

Mental health is a growing priority in European public health policy, yet implementation remains uneven across territories. Regional and local health authorities are not merely implementing actors — they are innovators, conveners and leaders of mental health action, bridging European frameworks and the communities they serve. Yet their experience is rarely systematically captured or translated into European policy and practice. EUREGHA’s 2025 Annual Conference Together for Mental Health: Regions Building Europe’s Healthier Future confirmed this central role, showcasing how regions drive action through whole-of-government strategies, community-based programmes, and leadership in European Joint Actions including PRISM and MENTOR. Discussions highlighted shared challenges: fragmented multi-level governance, gaps between EU initiatives and territorial implementation, and the need for stronger cross-sector and cross-border collaboration. Building on these insights, in 2026 EUREGHA (European Regional and Local Health Authorities association) launched a structured collection of mental health practices across its 28-member network. The initiative maps diverse regional approaches to prevention, community-based care and integrated service delivery — ranging, for example, from Wales’ Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy and Hapus community wellbeing campaign, the Basque Country’s Bizi suicide prevention programme developed within Joint Action PRISM, to cross-border mental health initiatives from the Gorizia area. The presentation will share findings from this collection, analysing common enablers and barriers - governance models, workforce capacity, cross-sector collaboration and community engagement - and exploring conditions for transferability across regions. Participants will gain actionable insights into strengthening equitable regional mental health systems and into how European initiatives can better support scaling and sustainability.

Key messages

• Regional authorities deliver mental health in practice; their experience must inform EU policy to close the gap between strategy and implementation.

• Scaling mental health requires governance, workforce and community alignment — not just funding — pointing to the need for stronger multi-level coordination.