The central message of the TAMUS project is that Talking About it Makes us Stronger. Through our family learning approach, our intention is to support European families to increase their knowledge and awareness of mental health issues that can affect all family members; but also, to develop alternative communication strategies to invite young people and adults within the family to open-up and talk about their feelings. To accomplish that, we developed the Family Learning Toolkit (WP3), to act as a series of prompts to encourage discussion between all family members. We also developed a learning programme to support parents themselves and to help them to use art and creative methods to get family members talking about their mental health. As such, our core objectives are to support European families to address mental ill-health at source in the family unit; and to support parents in their role as facilitators of family learning. Another objective is to support community-based adult educators to update their digital and pedagogic competences to be able to deliver the family learning programme developed by TAMUS and other similar content.
WHO reports that "neuropsychiatric disorders account for 26% of the burden of disease in the EU [...]". The cost of mental ill health to the EU-27 economy is estimated at €170 billion per year. In 2019, the WHO recommended that 'tailored, person-centred' interventions are needed to tackle mental ill health across Europe. We believe that Family Learning is a vehicle that can deliver this person-centred intervention in our communities. Families provide security for children, care for the elderly; a springboard to launch your life and a safety net to fall back on when things don't quite work out. Family learning has a significant and lasting impact on children's learning, giving them greater confidence and self-belief (NIACE, 2016). Family learning also brings a sense of solidarity, cohesion and stimulation to adults and children who learn together. However, research shows that in families where parents suffer from mental illness, children are at a higher risk of developing mental illness than other children. Therefore, the main motivation behind the TAMUS project is to address the need to support European families in managing their mental health.