“TAMUS – Talking About it Makes Us Stronger” is a 24-month Erasmus+ project addressing the need to support European families to manage their mental health, and to empower parents to promote positive mental health with the youngest and eldest members of their families.
Nurturing positive mental health among citizens of all ages should be a priority for all governments. However, despite the importance of positive mental health for society, reports from the WHO found that “neuropsychiatric disorders account for 26% of the burden of disease in the EU; accounting for up to 40% of years lived with disability, with depression as the main cause.” Mental health issues also affect a significant proportion of European families, especially in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. Supporting parents to protect their own mental health and support their children’s mental health is a critical priority.
The Erasmus+ project “TAMUS- Talking About it Makes Us Stronger” will address the need to support European families manage their mental health. Eight European organisations from Germany, Ireland, France, Italy, Greece, Portugal, Spain, and Cyprus will work together towards achieving a common goal: Support European families to manage their mental health and empower parents in our communities to promote positive mental health with the youngest and eldest members of their families.
Through our family learning approach, our intention is to support European families to increase their knowledge and awareness of mental health issues that affect all their members, but also to develop alternative communication strategies to invite young people and adults within the family to open up and talk about their feelings.
In order to achieve this goal, partners will develop a programme for parents to help them facilitate the TAMUS family learning resources, and to support them to better understand emerging mental health trends and concerns which may affect their families. They will also develop a family learning toolkit that will be piloted with 10 local families in each country and will include resources for children, teenagers and older adults, as well as an in-service training programme for adult and community-based educators.
The project started in September 2022 and will end in August 2024.
For more information about the project, visit the website https://tamusproject.eu/ or contact KMOP at [email protected].
