Organisational resilience

In order to improve mental health care on a sustainable basis, more resources are needed for prevention and better coordination of all relevant actors. Within the framework of an interdisciplinary initiative in the Palatinate, which has taken up the cause of promoting the topic of resilience in the Palatinate region and also changing public opinion on this topic, the ITA is looking into how mental health and in particular the concept of individual resilience can be transferred from employees to organisations. If this transfer is successful, i.e. if organisational resilience can also be built up, then crises or times of high pressure to change can not only be survived, but also be used for the further development of an organisation in the direction of improved sustainability in terms of growth/strengthening.

In the field of mental health, the need for change towards more prevention is particularly evident. A look at the current discussions on (mental) stress at the workplace and its consequences shows that the solution to the social problems that are coming to light can only succeed if all relevant groups and subsystems are taken into account. A health care system geared purely to "repair" is overtaxed by this.
On the basis of these findings, the initiative "Die Pfalz macht sich/dich stark - Wege zur Resilienz" was founded in the Palatinate. The initiative is headed by the "Pfalzklinikum"; many different actors are involved, e.g. representatives of the Institute for Technology and Labour e.V. in Kaiserslautern, the University of Koblenz-Landau and the Institute for Journalism and Communication Research in Hanover. The experts joined forces in order to strengthen the prevention of mental illnesses in the Palatinate in the future, i.e. to improve health care sustainably and systemically.

From the team's point of view, the key to this is the promotion of resilience. This is the ability to deal well with change and the ups and downs of life and to develop even under adverse conditions. A key difference to other resilience approaches is conviction: It is not only for individuals that strengthening factors need to be built up and risks reduced - organisations (companies, schools, etc.) and communities or cities can also promote and cultivate resilience - with positive implications not only for individuals but also for the respective overall system. The team's vision is a resilient region in the year 2025.

The alliance is currently working on concrete activities and networks in the fields of "Theory and Therapy", "Organization and Work" and "Community and Public Health". Already today, there is a wide range of activities, projects to improve mental health at the workplace, in the region. In order to bring about a truly sustainable change in the health system and society as well as in public opinion on the subject of mental health and prevention, the group cooperates with the FrameWorks Institute, a communication research organization from the USA. The latter will develop a clear communication strategy aimed at changing public opinion in order to reach citizens as well as decision-makers in business and politics and to steer the discourse in a productive direction.
In a few years, attitudes and structures regarding mental health in the Palatinate will have changed noticeably and measurably and preventive and health-maintaining measures will have been expanded.

To the website of the initiative: www.resilienz-pfalz.de