Mental health and suffering across generations: the new OSC QUAD GEMS event

On Wednesday, 3 June 2026, from 8:30 am to 12:30 pm, the Teatro Centro sociale OSC in Mendrisio will host Running in the Family: Mental Health and Suffering Across Generations. The encounter is the second event in the OSC QUAD GEMS 2026 cycle, the interdisciplinary training platform of the Cantonal sociopsychiatric organisation (OSC), developed in collaboration with Università della Svizzera italiana (USI) and cantonal academic and clinical partners.

Almost half of the children of parents with severe mental disorders are at risk of developing a psychiatric condition by adulthood. While psychiatry has long been aware of this fact, everyday clinical practice still struggles to address its practical implications. This is because it requires shifting the focus from the individual patient to the family as a living system. Above all, it demands a fundamental shift in mindset: moving away from simply managing chronic and acute phases, and towards making prevention a core pillar of public mental health.

The second OSC QUAD GEMS 2026 event tackles this challenge with the rigour of research and the urgency of care. At its core is a question that redefines the very meaning of clinical work: is it possible to recognise vulnerability before it becomes an illness, before the suffering has remained silent for years? And if so, what must we be willing to change in practice, in policy, and in the very image of mental health to actually make it happen?

The event is part of the European project FAMILY – Running in the FAMILY: Understanding and Predicting the Intergenerational Transmission of Mental Illness, funded by Horizon Europe and running from 2022 to 2027, with Università della Svizzera italiana as an associate partner. Coordinated at USI by Professor Andrea Raballo, the project examines how trauma and vulnerability are transmitted across generations through a blend of genetics, epigenetics, and relational dynamics—and, crucially, how this knowledge can serve as a tool for clinical prevention and a paradigm shift.

"Transgenerational risk is still far too overlooked in daily clinical practice. This delay results in late diagnoses and, above all, missed opportunities to build resilience in younger people. Making sense of this phenomenon means stopping looking at mental illness as an acute, isolated event and starting to see it as a silent, prolonged process—one that we can divert if we adopt the right clinical and organisational approach."

Prof. Andrea Raballo, Principal Investigator of the USI node in the FAMILY consortium and scientific director of the event

The main guest of the morning is Merete Nordentoft, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Copenhagen and Director of the Copenhagen Research Center for Mental Health (CORE). Her OPUS model has redefined early intervention in psychosis; meanwhile, the VIA studies (among the world's largest longitudinal research projects on children of parents with severe mental disorders) are currently producing the predictive tools that will transform tomorrow's clinical practice. Nordentoft is co-author, alongside Professor Raballo, of the founding paper of the FAMILY consortium, and her presence in Mendrisio represents a direct link between major European research centres and the Ticino region.

The encounter aims to act as a bridge between science, epidemiology, and the logic of care, targeting mental health professionals, clinicians, educators, healthcare workers, researchers, students, and policymakers. The goal is not merely to present data, but to offer a different conceptual framework in which prevention stops being an abstract aspiration and becomes a measurable investment in the public health of future generations.

More information about the project can be found on the dedicated website.