Porto City Hall promotes mental health care among its collaborators

Porto City Hall launched a programme to raise awareness on the issue of mental health among its collaborators, which is especially relevant in the ongoing pandemic context. Last week, it was time for the Municipal Police to undergo the workshop, at Almeida Garrett Municipal Library.

“The current framework [of Covid-19] accentuated and exposed even further the importance of taking care of people’s physical and psychological health, with common and concerted responses”, as stated by the Municipality of Porto.

The workshops are delivered either in-person or online, according to the audiences. “In-person sessions are targeted at municipal workers, whose activities are still carried out in the field, amid the pandemic”, as is the case of the Municipal Police, Porto Firefighter Battalion, operational assistants in cemeteries, Official Animal Collection Centre collaborators, gardeners, mobility and transport workers. As regards “officials and municipal workers that have access to a computer as a regular working tool”, the sessions are delivered online.

This initiative by Porto City Hall kicked off last week, in partnership with ENCONTRAR+SE, an Association that promotes actions to deal with Mental Health issues.

In addition, the Municipality will develop a case study on “Taking Care of the Well-Being and Mental Health amid the Pandemic”, among Municipal Police professionals and the Firefighters Battalion, developed in partnership with Porto Catholic University, under the“Work@Home” project.

It should be highlighted that Porto City Hall has carried out a strong bet geared at promoting well-being at work, not only under these unprecedented times, but also before the pandemic hit the world; already in 2019, jointly with ENCONTRAR+SE, the Municipality of Porto, under the leadership of Mayor Rui Moreira, promoted actions for training municipal leaders with the goal of “endowing officials with mechanisms that enable identifying red flags under mental health issues”.