Project SPOLU ("Together") - Czech psychology and medicine students volunteering in psychiatric institutions

Project SPOLU is an innovative platform, linking students of psychology and medicine, psychiatric patients and medical staff in psychiatric facilities across the Czech Republic. Hundreds of volunteers are regularly visiting... [ view full abstract ]

Project SPOLU is an innovative platform, linking students of psychology and medicine, psychiatric patients and medical staff in psychiatric facilities across the Czech Republic. Hundreds of volunteers are regularly visiting patients and organizing free-time activities, ranging from one-on-one dialogical meetings to various group activities based on expressive therapies (drama, arts, biblio and music therapy, relaxation, physical activity, cognitive training). Started as a small-scale student initiative in one of the clinics in Brno in fall 2012, SPOLU has so far spread into 4 major cities, covering 13 mental health care institutions.

Our activities help maintain healthy interpersonal relations during hospitalization, serve as a prevention of social withdrawal and relapses, raise chances of forming a patients´self-help group and assist in the process of recovery. Patients often mention our activities among the most beneficial means of treatment they have received during their hospitalization.

Extremely low-cost nature of our activities help to solve the problem of underfinanced state of Czech psychiatric system. The collaborative concept of Project SPOLU is easily replicable and transferrable into other institutions, cities and countries.