10/10/2026
This year's World Health Organisation theme highlights the importance of listening to people with lived experience, and, importantly, giving them meaningful opportunities to influence the policies, programmes and services that affect their lives.
This is particularly relevant when looking at substance use. Mental health, trauma, and substance use can intersect in complex ways, yet mental health is not always sufficiently considered within prevention, treatment, and recovery programmes.
Young people have also highlighted mental health as a recurring concern in WFAD's Global Youth Declaration, alongside peer pressure, economic difficulties, and awareness of substance-related risks.
For WFAD, this raises an important question: how do we move from listening to meaningful participation and trauma-informed action?
In our World Mental Health Day statement, we reflect on this question and on examples from our work, including the Youth Advisory Boards established through Voices for Change and the From Myth to Action Toolkit, developed together with DFAF.
Read the full statement here 👉 https://wfad.se/activity/news/world-mental-health-day-2026-lived-experiences-heard-real-voices-real-change/
