What contribution can ordinary people make to national mental health policies?

Abstract

Recent development practice has begun to demonstrate the possibilities of local communities engaging in local mental health policy and has been the subject of much research. The challenge now is to apply this grassroots learning to the development of national mental health policy and thus address the gap between the top-down and bottom-up styles of policy-making. This report describes the progress and achievements of grassroots organisations and people with mental health problems in Romania in developing policies to promote community-based mental health services at a national level. © 2007 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.