Supporting Mental Health for All: The Importance of Community Engagement

What does supporting mental health for all really mean? A difficult and complex question that I have reflected on, and while there is not one simple answer, at its core it involves a commitment to person-centeredness. Our World Mental Health Day discussion focused on the development, implementation, evaluation, and implications of How Right Now – a national, research-based communications campaign aimed to promote and strengthen the emotional well-being and resiliency of high-risk populations adversely affected by COVID-19 - related stress, grief, and loss.

Global Alliance at the UN High Level Meeting for HIV/AIDS and Side Events

The United Nations High Level Meeting (UNHLM) for HIV/AIDS and side events were held virtually from June 8-11 2021.  During the HLM, world leaders in the General Assembly adopted the Political Declaration which pledged urgent, transformative action to stop the global AIDS epidemic.  

Integrating Mental Health is Critical to Overcoming Inequities and Ending AIDS

Now is the Time: Ending Stigma Around Mental Illness and Improving Mental Health 

During Mental Health Month, the Global Alliance co-sponsored Youth Well-Being in a Digital World: The Roles of Schools and Communities along with:

It’s that time of year where longer days and warmer weather means summer is here. Have you been spending time outdoors?

The COVID-19 pandemic has created new realities for the entire world. In an effort to support graduate students during this time, The Global Alliance for Behavioral Health and Social Justice invited graduate students via email to participate in a global discussion group to understand how COVID-19 impacts them, their educations, and their communities. Eleven graduate students in total representing the USA, Canada, and Nepal responded to the invitation and participated in the global discussion group. The authors of this blog post represent a portion of the students who participated and moderated the discussion. While multiple concerns were raised throughout the discussion, several key themes emerged, which centered on:

Developing transformational partnerships to catalyze SDGs implementation panelists shared practical examples of how collaboration is necessary to accelerate the achievement of the SDGs, both between the SDGs and among stakeholders.

During the UN HLM session Accelerating action through digital technologies: Strengthening digital skills and capacities for human wellbeing, the discussion focused on the role of digital skills for development and the need to close the digital divide, particularly as the correlation between risks to COVID-19 intersecting with digital and social inequities were raised. The session highlighted examples from around the world with relation to access and barriers to reliable internet, in conjunction with the skills and platforms necessary to work remotely and attend virtual school. The central point was that digital skills (on desktops, laptops, and mobile devices) are required to accelerate the achievement of all SDGs. If used properly, such skills will be used as enablers, which means that without skills people will be left further behind. COVID-19 has brought to the surface the huge connectivity challenge, with over 90% of the world’s population living in an area that has service coverage, yet only 54% are using the internet, with less developed countries having significantly less usage (ITU, 2020)

During the Food Systems and Nutrition Patterns: Biodiversity, Resilience, and Food Security UN HLM session, panelists shared strategies for improving how our global food systems operate. A central theme of this session included sustainable food production and distribution. That is, critically evaluating the methods for how food is grown, harvested, raised, fished, etc., and the effects these methods have on the environment.