EUCOMS Network (European Community Mental health Service providers)

EUCOMS unites European service providers dedicated to delivering quality community-based services with and for people with mental ill health.

Mission statement

Recognizing the need for good quality community based mental health services in Europe, backed up by evidence of the value for people using these services, the EUCOMS Network acts as the linking pin between policy and practice and brings together mental health service providers from across Europe. EUCOMS partners want to make a difference with and for people who experience severe and enduring mental ill health by working together to continuously improve their own service delivery and advocate for strengthening mental health systems in such a way that funding mechanisms, legislation and policies create an enabling environment for community mental health services to function.

The scope of the network is community based mental health services for prevention, treatment, and recovery of people experiencing severe and enduring mental ill health. EUCOMS strives to achieve the following goals:

To describe the fundamental principles and key elements of community based mental health care;
To support assessment of national and local mental health care needs;
To support the planning of community based mental health care to address those needs;
To support the full implementation of community based mental health care in nations and regions;
To create an overview of implementation status of community based mental health care in nations and regions;
To advocate for appropriate European, national, regional and local legislation, policies and funding to meet those needs;
To support strong peer leadership of (ex) users, family and carers in services.

EUCOMS primarily represents European community based mental health service providers. The network is open for networks, service user organisations, carer organisations, umbrella organizations, service providers, governmental agencies, health authorities, health trusts and individuals that provide services for people experiencing severe and enduring mental ill health, or support these services.

Summary of relevant work

The EUCOMS Network is involved in the following main activities:

Knowledge sharing activities including the organisation of conferences, workshops and cross country visits to share best practices
Advocacy on national and European level for the implementation of quality community mental health care
Capacity building of leaders, providers, and peer experts in community mental health care
Supporting and pursuing the full implementation of community based mental health care in nations and regions

The values and ambitions of the EUCOMS Network can be found here.