Mental health should be a key part of every public health strategy. There is a strong moral and economic case for tackling the rising challenge of mental health problems for communities and the people who experience them. There are also clear, evidence-based and cost-effective steps that can be taken to build resilience, promote wellbeing and help to prevent mental health problems.

This report focuses on resilience; setting out the types of services, resources and infrastructure that need to be in place locally to support resilient communities, helping people to ‘feel good and function well’. It will be of interest to those who commission (or aim to influence the commissioning of) local services, those who provide services that impact on the wellbeing and resilience of their local community and those who use these services. Resilience should be central to any public mental health strategy but is only one element; it is essential that structural inequalities, like income or access to affordable housing, are also tackled. Evidence for this report was gathered through interviews, focus groups and a selected literature review.