The II Central American Conference on Mental Health and Human Rights, -San José, October 17-21-, was organized by the Central American Mental Health Network "United Families for Mental Health", a user and family associations' network that is progressively integrating new groups in the Subregion.
The Conference was attended by representatives of the ministries of health of Costa Rica, Panama and Belize; by users and families of Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Belize, Panama and Costa Rica; and by Dr. Carmen Martínez, PAHO/WHO Subregional Advisor for Central America and the Caribbean.
The network's coordinating committee and the associations met on the first two days. During the general conference, which took place on the third and fourth days, presentations were made about the mental health situation in Central America as well as on local experiences in several countries. Different themes were discussed, among others, the family-to-family model and art-therapy practices, adopted by different associations; the Trickle-Up training program for economic initiatives; fund management; training in websites and Facebook; and the advances observed regarding the human rights approach. The last day was devoted to the committee and to a parallel research agenda in the area.
The network is aware of the efforts of the Costa Rican associations in creating a national network, as in El Salvador, and of the progress made in the construction of a Central American Network vision. Among the major challenges currently facing the network are the development of a promotion and denunciation protocol; the design of a route to have influence in the increase of mental health budgets; the provision of input related to the human rights approach for policy-building and laws; and research promotion at the regional level, among others.
