Our History

In 1993 Marcel Carpay - director of RIAGG Veluwe Vallei an institution for mental health care explicitly focused on outpatient services for service users in a central region in the Netherlands - for the first time met professor Panagiotis Sakellaropoulos in the context of a conference of CEFEC (European network of social firms with the objective to create work for disabled and disadvantaged people) in Delphi, Greece.
Sakellaropoulos was founder of the (Greek) Society of Social Psychiatry and Mental Health, operating mobile units, day activity centres, apartments for protected living, initiatives for local products run by service users and activities in the field of sensitizing community for mental health matters in several regions in Greece. Both of them, representing social psychiatry in mental health, got motivated for a further
acquaintance with each other’s services. Sakellaropoulos was especially interested in the way the foundation of regional outpatient services, all over the Netherlands, was realized within a relatively short period of time, while Carpay was especially interested in the way initiatives of
service users towards the labour market could be realized. Visits to each other’s services led to the decision of cooperation. This cooperation formed the basis of a joint application in 1994 to the European Social Fund in order to finance day activity centres for service users in Greece and the Netherlands.

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In 1995 a delegation of the Dutch umbrella organization for outpatient services in mental health care (NVAGG) visited the services of the Society of Social Psychiatry and Mental Health in Athens and Alexandroupolis. This delegation also met the director of mental health of the ministry of health Petros Giannoulatos and offered support for the reinforcement of outpatient and community based mental health services in Greece. The president of NVAGG, Harm Bruins Slot and Sakellaropoulos were interviewed by a local television channel in Alexandroupolis about a dramatic event the day before, when a person with mental health problems killed someone.
In some of the Greek media there was a plea to lock up people with mental health problems in psychiatric hospitals more often and for a longer period. Sakellaropoulos explained better ambulatory alternatives to this view, supported by Bruins Slot, who suggested similar solutions
from Dutch practice. This was an important event in the relationship between Greek and Dutch institutions involved in mental health care.
In 1996, after a visit of Giannoulatos to the Dutch ministry of health, both ministries decided to cooperate in order to strengthen social psychiatry and outpatient services in Greece, taking the national structure, as realized in the Netherlands, as an example. This cooperation was confirmed in a letter signed by the Greek minister Geitonas and his Dutch colleague Borst. As a result in 1998, the statutes of “Stichting Grieks/Nederlands Verbond voor Initiatieven op het gebied van Geestelijke Gezondheid” (Greek/Dutch Foundation Covenant for Initiatives in the field of Mental Health) named “Asklepios” were passed, with its registered office in Ede (Netherlands). Members of the board, at the time, were representatives of the Psychiatric department of the Military Hospital in Athens, Society of Social Psychiatry and Mental Health, the Dutch mental health institutions “Gelderse Roos” “Symfora”, RIAGG Veluwe Vallei and NVAGG. It was agreed that meetings would take place at the various locations of the participating institutions. In addition, it was intended that the presidency would not be held for more than
three years. 

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The Presidency was held successively by Leo de Graaf (NL), Theofanis Kleopas (GR), (and after the accession of institutions from other European countries) Gordon Moore (UK), Anders Wahlstedt (NO), David Brown (UK) and Eelco Damen (NL). The function of secretary and (general) secretary remained exclusively in the hands of Iris Eppink respectively Marcel Carpay. During the first years of the existence of the foundation much effort was put into supporting innovation of mental health in Greece. When developments came to a standstill, partly due to the repeated lack of financial resources for paying the salaries of professionals in mental health, the foundation several times turned to the responsible ministry in Greece or the involved EU Commissioner.

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In the years that followed, interest arose from institutions in countries other than Greece and the Netherlands such as the Belgian institution for family nursing in Geel, Tees Esk and Wear Valleys NHS in the UK and Sorlandet Sykehus in Norway and lately NovaEtica in Sardinia Italy. Dutch institutions for mental health such as GGZ Ingeest, Geestelijke Gezondheidszorg Noord Holland Noord terminated there membership for the foundation, while the Dutch institution Cordaan earlier became a member organization. Middin, also from the Netherlands, joined recently, as well as Federation of Psychosocial Rehabilitation and Mental Health Organizations “Argo” from Greece, Tao of Care from the Netherlands, the University of Nicosia/UNIC from Cyprus. Herewith the focus of the foundation was broadened to other sectors in health care being care for the elderly and people with intellectual disabilities and also in the sector of science.

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The objective of Asklepios gradually shifted towards target groups of people for whom it is difficult to access adequate care, like people living in rural areas at long distances from health services, people with intellectual disabilities at the same time suffering from psychiatric problems, people with addictions also having other psychiatric problems, people with dementia, refugees and asylum seekers suffering of posttraumatic stress disorders. Because of these changes in memberships and addition of other health care sectors it became  necessary to amend the statutes. This happened in 2007. The most relevant changes concerned the object of the Foundation: “to undertake activities from a global perspective to promote health care and, furthermore, to perform any acts directly or indirectly relating thereto or conducive thereto, all in the broadest sense” and “the Foundation shall endeavour to achieve this object inter alia by:

• developing exchange programs for staff, trainees and trainers involved in rehabilitation projects and/or daytime activities and/or management issues, focusing on the exchange of experiences and best practices in the field of health care and health care education policies;

• raising funds for the projects to be carried out by the stakeholders jointly;

• establishing and maintaining international contacts;

• undertaking and/or commissioning scientific research”
   

From 2011 during the presidency of Anders Wahlstedt the way of functioning of the foundation became further structured. Two times a year the Foundation held multi-day meetings. One day was reserved for seminars on professional themes. During the other days board meetings and site visits took place. The choice for the kind of site visits was related to the theme of the seminar. During board meetings substantial time was set aside for evaluations of exchange programs, internships, trainings, educational programs and projects that were realized in between the multi-day meetings. In this period again, after a change of government in Greece, support was needed for the continuation of improving the national mental health system, despite the major financial crisis that had just erupted. For that cause Asklepios organized a conference in which representatives of the Greek ministry of health were invited to participate. Among others the former Dutch minister of health Ab Klink and the former Greek minister of labour Louka Katseli gave presentations and participated in discussions trying to find solutions for the impasse, for the short as well as the longer term. In 2011 was founded an advisory committee, a broadly based support group to promote the advancement of innovation in Greek mental health care, based on the basic philosphy of community based mental health, with outpatient services.

 

As it was the ambition of Asklepios Foundation to organize international conferences every 5 years, two of these conferences were held. The first one in 2006 was organized in Athens on “Social inclusion” at the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Society of Social Psychiatry and Mental Health. The conference not only attracted the attention of professionals, politics and management from countries in which the member organizations were active, but also from Italy, Spain and France. Outside EU countries, a delegation from US also participated.

 

The second large international conference was held in 2011 in Amsterdam and was focused on the future of long-term care in the EU. The title of the conference was “Does Europe Care?”. It concerned all healthcare sectors involved in long-term care and was organized by the Asklepios foundation in cooperation with the university of Amsterdam and the public health service of the Dutch capital GGD Amsterdam. Because this was about European policy, the vision of EU was presented by the former director general of the Dutch ministry of health Koos Richelle on behalf of EU Commissioner John Dalli. During the 24 years of existence of the foundation many exchanges were realized, many internships were offered and many seminars were held for professionals of the member organizations. Mostly professional themes were chosen, sometimes also topics in the field of management (Lean) or automation and ICT. In the context of this brief historical summary, the
following examples will suffice: in the field of education and training a long-term offer of internships for Greek professionals in mental health in Dutch institutions for people with intellectual disabilities, as well as, more recently a training program for Greek mental health professionals, being an introduction into treatment and support of refugees and asylum seekers with intellectual disabilities and/or posttraumatic stress disorders. This training was offered by Dutch behavioral experts in cooperation with professor, with emeritus status, Joop de Jong expert
in the field. This training was organized as a result of the outcomes of an Asklepios seminar about this specific target group. Concerning seminars the following themes can be remembered: treatment and support of people with intellectual disability suffering of (severe) psychiatric problems, the meaning of the recovery movement and deployment of peer support workers, improvement of approach to people with dementia. 

Because of the outbreak of the Covid pandemic (spring 2020) these kind of activities unfortunately had to be terminated abruptly.

In 2019 finally after a previous unsuccessful submission, the German Erasmus+ agency approved the Asklepios project on peer support work in mental health. Together with Polish and German partners representatives of Society of Social Psychiatry P. Sakellaropoulos (as the Society was named after its founder diseased), Cordaan, Geestelijke Gezondheidszorg Noord Holland Noord and Sørlandet Sykehus had to work on consensus documents, leading to standardizing peer support work. April 2022 standards of competence profiles, task descriptions, educational and training programs on European (EQF) levels 4 and 5, as well as possible forms of implementation in national mental
health structures were completed. The participating institutions had € 300.000 at their disposal to achieve formulated goals. The search for subsidized activities already started before the establishment of Asklepios in the described collaboration between Society of Social Psychiatry and Mental Health and RIAGG Veluwe Vallei in 1994. During the November meeting in 2021 the Asklepios board decided upon a so called “Search Strategy” for the acquisition of new funds and subsidies, now the foundation could resume activities again, as measures to mitigate the pandemic have been significantly eased. It was decided to focus on treatment and support of people mentally suffering from the (long-
term) consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic, admission to the labour market of people with intellectual disabilities and autism, promotion of well-being of people with psychiatric problems, people with dementia and people with intellectual disabilities by expressions of art in particular
music. The focus on long term consequences of the pandemic are specified in the vulnerable position of care givers “in the frontline” given the increasing stress and aggression directed against them, increasing domestic violence and the increase of violence against girls and women.