2 - (OP1) Co-creating CBT Interventions for Vulnerable Groups: Establishing the MENTBEST Co-creators Network and Qualitative Insights from the COMBINA Intervention

MENTBEST is a EU-funded project that co-develops community-based and digital interventions to protect mental health among vulnerable groups in 7 European countries. including migrants, youth, older people, unemployed and people with mental health difficulties. The Co-Creators Network was established through a structured, multi-step process to embed representatives of these groups as partners in developing a complex intervention aiming to reduce suicidal behavious and improve depression care. A Standard Operating Procedure was shared across countries to standardise stakeholder mapping and recruitment, guiding teams to identify and prioritise stakeholders within vulnerable groups using the 9 Cs model and a power–interest matrix. An online consortium workshop then aligned partners on numbers, profiles, roles and incentives for co-creators in each site, followed by a Terms of Reference document specifying the Network’s purpose, composition, responsibilities and capacity-building offers. Recruitment was conducted locally using this framework, supported by a dedicated online platform, and culminated in an online induction workshop in November 2023 where 22 co-creators from seven countries were introduced to the project and their roles. Since then, they have provided ongoing insights through a series of online workshops on study methodology, evaluation and intervention design.
COMBINA is a multi-level, community-based intervention grounded in the European Alliance Against Depression (EAAD) 4-level model, combining: public awareness activities, training for primary care staff in CBT-consistent detection and interventions; training for community facilitators in core CBT principles. Through co-creation, vulnerable-group representatives adapted these CBT-based components, including campaign content, formats and language, to better reflect lived experience and local contexts.
​The evaluation of co-creation used mixed methods; this abstract focuses on a semi-structured focus group (n = 9) held during an in-person workshop and analysed with IPA and Braun and Clarke’s thematic framework. Co-creators described the Network as a space where experiential and professional knowledge were treated as equally legitimate, and where structured co-design and decision-making transformed initial doubts into a strong sense of recognition and empowerment. Participants highlighted emotional benefits—belonging, connection and fulfilment—alongside capacity gains, including enhanced research literacy, co-creation skills and more nuanced, CBT-consistent, person-centred communication in their own contexts. They also identified challenges linked to language, time zones and continuity in a long-term, largely online process, and proposed practical solutions such as in-person kick-off/closing meetings, shorter but more frequent online sessions, advance circulation of materials and multimodal participation. Overall, the findings show that a systematically established, transnational co-creator network can both shape CBT-informed digital and community interventions and act as a capacity-building, empowering process for vulnerable-group representatives and practitioners.