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* Article 7 states the obligation to provide mentally retarded children and adolescents with education and rehabilitation.

* Article 8 outlines the particular obligation of social welfare agencies to "provide in their catchment areas social support to people who due to their mental illness or mental retardation face severe difficulties in daily life, especially with respect to interpersonal relations, employment, and the ability to support themselves."

MENTAL HEALTH PROGRAMME

In 1992, a Mental Health Programme was developed by a team of experts from Poland's Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology in collaboration with the World Health Organisation Regional Office for Europe.⁸ The programme's primary aim was to de-institutionalise psychiatric care and increase the accessibility of outpatient services. Instead of large mental hospitals, small psychiatric wards were to be established in regular hospitals. Various forms of intermediate psychiatric care were recommended such as day treatment hospitals, occupational therapy workshops, nursing homes, and sheltered housing. In implementing the programme it has become obvious that the care of people with severe mental illness should not be delivered solely by the health service.

In 1999 an amended and revised version of the programme emphasised the co-operation of many parties in mental health protection, including local authorities, labour and social welfare agencies, educational institutions, and the mass media. The goal of the amended programme is to improve the quality of care for the mentally ill. In addition, it seeks to implement prevention programmes which target people at risk, and educational programmes, which prepare people to cope with the new socio-economic conditions, and shape more positive attitudes toward people with mental health disorders.

The Mental Health Programme, even as amended in 1999, devotes too little attention to mental health protection in the workplace. The only reference is to sheltered work, which is mainly for patients with severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and chronic schizophrenia and the mentally retarded. It advocates "enlargement of the network of sheltered workshops and cottage industry teams under the management of social co-operatives* and increasing the number of opportunities for supportive employment." Responsibility for the program's administration is currently being debated within the government. Attempts will be made to broaden it beyond the Ministry of Health, where it currently resides.

*Social co-operatives are also known as social firms. The Confederation of European Social Firms and Social Co-operatives (CEFEC) defines a social firm as a regular business in the market that employs a significant number of people with disabilities. In a social firm, people with disabilities are paid regular wages and work on the basis of regular work contracts. All employees have the same rights and obligations whether they are disabled or not. People with disabilities and other people work together on an equal basis. There are approximately 2,000 social firms in Europe. A large percentage of people with disabilities who work in social firms have a psychiatric disability.

(Schwarz, G. & Higgins, G: Marienthal the social firms network Supporting the Development of Social Firms in Europe, UK, 1999)