A/HRC/43/39 F. Towards enabling and effective strategies to protect children’s mental health and well-being 108. Efforts to address mental health and violence against children should be guided by international human rights standards and the sustainable development framework, but they should also reflect a modern public health approach. One of the key principles of this approach is that good mental health means much more than the absence of a mental impairment: it is a state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and is able to make a contribution to his or her community. 109. Realizing the right of child victims and witnesses of violence to the highest attainable standard of mental health requires comprehensive and coordinated action. It requires an intersectoral and multi-stakeholder approach that encompasses both policies and actions to create an environment that decreases risks and vulnerabilities, as well as developing and strengthening services to provide timely and comprehensive mental health care to people who need it.86 There are already important frameworks in place to guide the actions of Member States in this field, such as the WHO mental health action plan 2013– 2020 and the Lancet Commission on global mental health and sustainable development. 110. The starting point is the need to protect and promote everyone’s mental health and well-being. It is essential to create the conditions that will allow children to develop, thrive and reach their potential. To achieve this, it is necessary to address the social and environmental determinants that have a crucial influence on mental health at developmentally sensitive periods, particularly in childhood and adolescence. Many of the Sustainable Development Goals explicitly address these determinants and progress towards their attainment has the potential to promote mental health and reduce the global burden of mental disorders. 111. Prevention requires a combination of universal and targeted interventions that address the barriers and threats to mental health, especially those that present in early childhood. They include action to reduce stigmatization, discrimination and human rights violations that undermine children’s mental health. Prevention also requires specific action to address the needs of vulnerable groups across the lifespan in a manner that is integrated with wider health promotion strategies. In addition, prevention efforts must respond to the increasing threats to mental health arising from global challenges, such as climate change and growing inequality. 112. Mental health services must be scaled up as an essential component of universal health coverage and should be fully integrated with other strategies in the fields of health and violence prevention. Comprehensive community-based health and social care services must be developed that ensure continuity of care between providers, effective collaboration between formal and informal care providers and the promotion of self-care. Children and adolescents with mental disorders should be provided with evidence-based psychosocial and other non-pharmacological interventions and be based in the community, avoiding institutionalization and medicalization. Early intervention is essential. 113. The empowerment of children to take an active part in decisions regarding their own care is a fundamental component of a rights-based approach to mental health. The views and experiences of children with lived experience of mental disorders and psychosocial disabilities must shape the design, delivery and evaluation of services. 114. It is essential to have the right number and equitable distribution of competent, sensitive and appropriately skilled health professionals, and to build the knowledge and skills of general and specialized health workers to deliver evidence-based, culturally appropriate and human rights-oriented services. New opportunities should be embraced in this domain, including those offered by the innovative use of trained non-specialist individuals and digital technologies to deliver a range of mental health interventions. 86 20 Ibid.