Various forms of human rights based training exist (see, for example, Part I, Section B ‘World Health Organisation – QualityRights Toolkit and Good Practice Guidance’ p.17). The Médiateur de santé pairs, for example, could be described as a training program in addition to being a workforce development strategy. One explicit training initiative – BE RIGHT – was submitted for inclusion in the compendium.

BE RIGHT – Multinational Training Initiative for Health and Social Care Professionals in Mental Health Settings

‘BE RIGHT’ is a training package concerning on human rights in mental health care settings. The contents and methods of the training are meant to highlight the susceptibility of persons with mental health conditions and psychosocial disabilities to rights violations in the very social and health services designed to help them. The training involves reflective practices to assist professionals’ to interrogate widely-held attitudes toward mental health.

The training is reportedly ‘highly practical, interactive, compelling and driving to action’. It was delivered as part of a pilot test conducted with 5 partner organisations (including the Andalusian School of Public Health in Spain, noted earlier in the report) to a total of 75 individual professionals and is now publicly available through the ‘Be Right e-learning platform’. The platform is available in six EU languages.

The program emphasises the voice of individuals with personal experience of mental health conditions and psychosocial disabilities, who were reportedly directly involved in the development of the training materials and the delivery of the training. According to the ‘Be Right’ website:

BE RIGHT project seeks to give voice to individuals with personal experience of mental illness to speak about how they want to be treated. This will be achieved by directly involving individuals with mental condition in the development of the training materials and the delivery of the training (co-production). In order to provide a comprehensive tool for persons with mental illness to learn about their rights and empower them to stand for their rights an educational board game in human rights for service users will be created.

Thanks to the involvement of different actors- specialists in human rights, social service and health service professionals working directly with persons with mental illness, and the users themselves-, the resulting products will have a special value, built on variety of experiences, insights and expertise (see : Be Right: the project).

It is not immediately clear whether the material in the BE RIGHT training explicitly addresses the reduction or prevention of involuntary psychiatric interventions.