Mental health challenges are widespread among children and adolescents in Greece, according to a recent report by the Child & Adolescent Mental Health Initiative (CAMHI), with 39% of parents who participated in the survey reporting that their child exhibits relevant symptoms. At this critical juncture, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) supported the complete renovation of a building at Agia Sofia Children’s Hospital in Athens to house the local hub of CAMHI’s Referral Network. The Athens hub is part of a nationwide effort encompassing four other hubs that have been established within public child psychiatric hubs in Alexandroupoli, Thessaloniki, Ioannina, and Crete through CAMHI, which is exclusively supported by SNF as part of the its Global Health Initiative (GHI). The program’s mission is to help enhance mental health care capacity and strengthen mental health infrastructure for children and adolescents in Greece, in partnership with the Greek state and in collaboration with the Child Mind Institute in New York.
CAMHI’s new Athens hub was inaugurated on Friday, January 10. In attendance at the event were Minister of Health Adonis Georgiades, Agia Sophia Children's Hospital Director Emmanuel Papasavvas, National and Kapodistrian Hospital Rector Gerasimos Siasos, SNF Chief Financial Officer Christina Lampropoulou, and Katerina Papanikolaou, who is Professor of Child Psychiatry at the National University of Athens Medical School, Director of the University Child Psychiatry Clinic at Agia Sophia, and Head of the Athens CAMHI hub.
In his speech, Minister of Health Adonis Georgiades said, "Today I have the pleasure of attending the inauguration of hub for mental illness at the largest Children's Hospital in the country. Here the skilled and deserving professionals who staff this center will now have the space and the appropriate technical means to do this work in the best possible way to the highest standard thanks to a major grant from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation. The Stavros Niarchos Foundation has deservedly earned the title of ‘National Champion’ in the informal league of supporters by a very wide margin. Rest assured that the Ministry of Health always strives to make the best use of every grant to leave the best possible mark on our fellow citizens."
SNF Chief Financial Officer Christina Lambropoulou said, “This opening coincides with the start of the new year, and like any new beginning, it is accompanied by optimism—optimism that is deeply rooted in realism—that against these disconcerting research findings and a grim prognosis for youth mental health, there stands a bulwark like this and a group of committed health professionals like those of the Child & Adolescent Mental Health Initiative.”
The Director of the Aghia Sophia Children's Hospital, Emmanuel Papasavvas, said: "It is a special honor for our hospital to inaugurate today the Athens hub for the Child & Adolescent Mental Health Initiative, kindly supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, which we thank warmly. The Stavros Niarchos Foundation, true to its values, vision, and mission, through the framework of the Global Health Initiative (GHI), supports the National Health System through the operation of the hub for the mental health of children and adolescents in Athens, an excellent initiative that leaves its own mark on the sensitive field of mental health with a state-of-the-art facility. Warm thanks also to the political leadership of the Ministry of Health for its longstanding support for the realization of this great project for public health.”
Global Health Initiative (GHI), which includes more than 70 projects in Greece and internationally. The program, which falls under the GHI’s mental health pillar, complements more than a dozen other related projects in the same field. These include the establishment of two international centers: the SNF Global Center for Child and Adolescent Mental Health at the Child Mind Institute, which aims to create a global network in the vein of CAMHI’s efforts in Greece, and the SNF Center for Precision Psychiatry and Mental Health at Columbia University in New York, which seeks to drive watershed innovations in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of serious mental illness.
A wide spectrum of other organizations around the world also receive support under the GHI’s mental health pillar. Though they address different areas of need, these organizations all aim to strengthen the quality of mental health care and promote equal access to mental health services for all. Their work includes clinician training, youth empowerment, awareness and anti-stigma campaigns, school-based programs, psychosocial counseling, addiction prevention, mental health first aid, and much more. At the same time, the new SNF public hospitals being built in Thessaloniki, Komotini, and Sparta will introduce state-of-the-art mental health infrastructure in the geographic peripheries of Greece, recognizing the specific needs of each region.
