11/03/2008 - Submitted by: Tilia Bousios

The ProMenPol toolkit aims to manage this complexity on behalf of the frontline staff member of an organisation who is motivated or required to implement mental health promotion and protection activities. The foundations of the Toolkit are based on a database within which tools and techniques are coded so that they can be retrieved in a systematic way that makes sense to the frontline staff member.

The first task facing the ProMenPol team was to develop a framework which could cope with the variety and complexity of the field while at the same time acting as a reference point for searching for tools. Two possible sources of models and classification systems were considered upon which to base the framework; the recently developed International Classification of Functioning, Health and Disability (ICF) and the Models developed within
the Health Promotion field. Both coding systems have been included in the initial version of the database (a final version will be produced at the end of the project).

The methodology used to reduce the overall complexity of the framework was adapted from studies which have been implemented in relation to the ICF. These studies utilised a combination of Delphi survey techniques, document analysis and expert focus group methodologies to reduce the 1500 codes of the ICF to a manageable number for a specific condition in a specific service context. These selective sets of ICF categories are commonly called Core Sets. From a ProMenPol perspective the target was to reduce the number of ICF categories to specifically target Mental Health in a Health Promotion context. In order to retain a focus it was agree that three core sets would be developed, one for each of the contexts within the scope of the project i.e. schools, workplaces and older persons’ residences. From a mental health promotion (MHP) perspective the methodology involved building an initial classification system and testing it through a similar procedure to that used for the ICF. As a result two core sets were generated which were presented at the first ProMenPol conference and validated against the views of participants and their contacts. As a result a coding system was produced based on the framework which has been transformed into a searchable database.