In 1971 in Trieste, a coastal city in northeast Italy with 200,000 residents—roughly the size of Hobart – Franco Basaglia became the director of the provincial psychiatric hospital and started a process of transformation with a group of young physicians, psychologists, volunteers and students. But what happened next wasn’t just another policy reform or hospital closure. It became a social revolution.

Basaglia had been revolted by what he observed as the conventional regime of institutional ‘care’ with locked doors when he first worked in Gorizia in the early 1960s. But by the time he reached Trieste, he understood something profound: you can’t fix a broken system by simply moving the broken pieces around.

Instead of just closing the asylum and opening new facilities, Basaglia created a community movement. The Trieste model put the person—not their diagnosis—at the centre of the health care system. Art, food and social activities became ways for the whole community to be involved in a person’s mental wellness.

The results speak for themselves: Trieste today has consistently lower suicide rates, less homelessness, fewer people with mental illness in prisons, and dramatically reduced use of compulsory treatment orders. Basaglia’s reforms ultimately led to a 1978 law that abolished all of Italy’s mental asylums, and the Trieste model has been emulated in several Italian regions and more than 40 countries. It is recognized by the World Health Organization as one of the most progressive community-based mental health care systems in the world.