Education for Wellbeing: Is Investing in Mental Health Literacy the Key to Reducing the Burden on Clinical Services?

About the Webinar: 

Mental health literacy programmes are increasingly being used around the world as an effective strategy for reducing the burden of mental illness on communities, particularly amongst diverse communities who experience multiple barriers to accessing services.

Such programmes can help our most vulnerable communities to better understand their mental health and know how to obtain and maintain good mental health, understand mental disorders and related interventions, how to seek help and reduce stigma against mental illness. As a result, people are able to take an active role in supporting their collective mental wellbeing, which helps to shift the burden or responsibility away from clinical services, builds community capability and promotes earlier intervention.

The application of digital technologies in making mental health literacy scalable and accessible for diverse communities has the potential to break down barriers: language, access, geographical, financial and uplift entire populations’ understanding about their own mental health.

In this webinar, experts from Canada and New Zealand discuss how investment in mental health literacy programmes, particularly for remote, diverse and rural communities, has significant potential to improve the mental wellbeing of communities at large, and how technology and collaboration are playing key roles in unlocking the potential impact of these strategies on our priority populations.

Key discussion points

• What are the examples globally where investing in mental health literacy  is improving mental wellbeing indicators for priority communities?
• What can we learn from communities with regards to how they want to engage with mental health education?
• What is the appropriate way to approach mental health literacy training for diverse, rural and remote communities?
• What role does digital technology have to play in the delivery of mental health literacy education?
• What is the economic benefit for  communities investing in mental health literacy?