INTRAS is a non-profit organisation founded in 1994 dedicated to high quality research and intervention in the mental health field. The organisation nowadays consists of 10 centres in 6 different provinces in Spain with more than 270 psychiatrists, psychologists and professionals from social and economic fields carrying out research, training and clinical practice. The main target group of INTRAS consists of people suffering from mental disorders, whereby the organisation also performs activities and offers services to the disabled, the elderly and people at risk of social exclusion in general.

The development of our services and programmes is based on the “Recovery approach”, thus empowering the users to live a self-determined and self-confident life through reflecting their potential wishes and providing them with vocational training and employability programmes accordingly. We develop activities and offer different services for our target groups such as psychosocial and labour rehabilitation programmes, occupational and vocational training, pre-labour workshops, counselling and professional guidance/ coaching, social employment, etc. The main aim of our work is to achieve an own life project with an appropriate level of quality of life, despite that some symptoms of the mental illness may persist. For that, we pay special attention and listen to the voice of our target groups demanding new programs and activities, in order to provide services taking into account the possibilities of each person and providing people with resources to empower them to be protagonist of their recovery process and thus of their own life. The last step of Recovery process is employment, either through getting a job in a social firm or in a standard enterprise. Because of applying Recovery approach, some of our users are now leading a musical band, others have launched a catering social firm, some others have a job selling and maintaining ebikes, others work in the field of gardening and horticulture, etc.

Aiming to promote labour inclusion of our target groups, INTRAS has created in 1999 a social enterprise that is currently managed by people with mental health problems. From its inception until now, it has developed different business lines: handcraft, cleaning services, catering, gardening, bakery, social tourism… among others. Furthermore, we are coordinating the national network ADECEM, which gathers 24 social enterprises in the country targeting people suffering from mental disabilities.

INTRAS also manages vocational training programmes specially addressed to young people with mental health problems, learning difficulties and/or behavioural disorders. These programmes are funded by the Ministry of Education and thus following the official educational curriculum but including some adaptations depending on the level of the students learning difficulties. Moreover, we offer professional guidance and counselling to our youth, and we cooperate with a number of enterprises that provide practical training to our students in order to complete the theoretical part of the curriculum. Besides vocational training we develop non-formal educational activities such as artistic workshops (paining, graffiti, handcrafts..), ICT workshops (computering design, digital photography, blogging, radio online, podcast…), youth exchanges, and programmes based on sport and outdoor activities aiming to promote healthy life style. A substantial and diverse team of pedagogues, psychopedagogues, teachers and educators, social and youth workers, with vast experience in special needs education, is involved in formal and non-formal educational programmes, helping the disabled youth to participate in their everyday realities as equal members.

Years of professional work have brought INTRAS solid experience and excellent referential background both in the field of European projects and in the development of innovative actions for psychosocial and labour rehabilitation of people with mental illness. It has broad experience in cooperating at international level, not only by participating at EU projects (more than 25 developed in the last 5 years), but also been active members of relevant networks in the field of disability such as European Platform for Rehabilitation (EPR) and Mental Health Europe (MHE). INTRAS represented the Spanish Focal Point for the network Mental Health Europe during the years 2010-2011.

INTRAS is the only organisation in the region working in the field of mental health that has received the EFQM certificate (European Foundation for Quality Management) for business excellence (bronze seal 400+). Since 2011, INTRAS holds a European Excellency Seal +400.