Walking the Path Toward Christmas: Engaging, Supporting & Collaborating.
Although Covid-19 hit us early this year, surprising the whole world and making humanity adapt to new ways of relating, connecting, and communicating, it has not stopped JAEC from going forward.
For all of us, Covid has been life-changing.
And yet, amidst these extremely challenging times, the JAEC Foundation has managed to offer support and collaborate with inspiring individuals, projects, and organizations that are changing psychiatry’s landscape.
We trust that the support JAEC offers to communities and groups in need, to alternative treatment centers, organizations, and institutes, in collaboration with many professionals in the field of mental health, helps us move forward towards a more responsible, compassionate, and fairer model of society.
Some of the organizations and projects which the JAEC Foundation has supported and is involved with within Switzerland are the Institut Maieutique of Lausanne, the Les Paccot- Dessus Association, and Les Jardins Therapeutiques project.
We currently offer online self-help groups such as Free Psy Talk and the Groupe de Soutien pour Les Proches. Both groups meet once every month. And we are committed to helping to create support groups to measure for different needs and organizations.
JAEC continues to collaborate with the international organizations of Mad in America and the Inner Fire Healing Community. More recently, Claudia Esteve, founder of the JAEC Foundation, has joined the International Institute for Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal (IIPDW) as an associate. Stemming from that, JAEC has joined forces with Olga Runciman, founder of Psychovery and member of the Hearing Voices Network. Together we host the self-help group Online Conversations: Tapering & Other Topics, which provides support and information regarding the critical topic of discontinuing the psychotropic medication.
The JAEC foundation has also funded one grant to the Open Dialogue UK Training and two scholarships to the National Empowerment Center’s eCPR Training (NEC) this year.
2020 comes to its end, and 2021 opens up ahead of us, full of opportunities. There will be many challenges arising from the aftermath of Covid. JAEC is aware that society will require psychological and mental health structures to sustain the population as we advance.
There is a path. Many are committed to changing and improving the mainstream mental health care system, and new forms of collaboration arise every day. Changing the paradigm of mental health and mental health care is possible.
“Mental health is an activity that people do together, rather than a thing that individuals have or don’t have. “ Green & Polk
Our thanks to all who have supported the JAEC Foundation in 2020 and who make this dream possible!
We wish you a Merry Christmas and a 2021 year filled with hope, joy, and serenity.