
Here’s how your mental health depends on collective wellbeing
One legacy of the COVID-19 crisis could be a revolution in how we measure mental health and promote recognition that our wellbeing depends very much on the groups we are part of.
Problem Statement:
Mental health worries amongst students and young professionals
Target Group:
Students and young professionals
Proposed Solution:
A webinar with mental health professionals
Hub Activities:
Global Shapers co-organising a webinar with mental health professionals
Short & Long-Term Goals/Results:
Mental wellbeing support for students and young professionals
Available Metrics:
297 students and young professional attendees
Collaborators:
Advisory Singapore
Community Health Assessment Team, Institute of Mental Health
National Youth Council Singapore
Youth Corps Singapore
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Paying homage to Gabriel García Márquez's Love in the Time of Cholera - "Mental Wellbeing in the Time of COVID-19" was a joint effort by Advisory Singapore, Community Health Assessment Team (CHAT), the Singapore Hub of the Global Shapers Community, National Youth Council Singapore, and Youth Corps Singapore. It was a webinar on mental health and wellbeing for students and young professionals, to ensure that youth had an avenue to seek advice and ask questions about coping with COVID-19's impact on mental health. 297 students and young professionals attended the session.
COVID-19 and the resultant circuit breaker measures in Singapore created an upheaval in the way we work, study, and communicate. While many tried to adapt to these changes, this prolonged isolation took a toll on mental health. We hoped to provide students and young professionals an avenue through which to engage with mental health practitioners on how to cope and what to expect in a post-circuit breaker world.
Advisory is co-founded and led by Global Shaper of the Singapore Hub Mock Yi Jun; its Board of Advisors is chaired by Young Global Leader from Singapore Aaron Maniam and includes members like YGL @Mohamed Faizal; and its community of pro bono working professional volunteers (known as the Advisory Professionals Network) is co-chaired by Curator of the Global Shapers Community Singapore Hub Timothy Low). This webinar was put together by Global Shapers Alin Dobrea, Khoo Yi Feng (who also moderated the panel) and Mock Yi Jun.
The session featured mental health professionals from CHAT (Youth Support Worker, Khoo Yi Feng), The Therapy Room (Director and Principal Registered Psychologist, Dr Geraldine Tan), Limitless (Founder and Executive Director Asher Low) and SHINE Children and Youth Services (Senior Social Worker, Irnina Wong).
From the 297 student and young professional attendees, we received 82 post-webinar feedback responses, with the average rating of responses (10 being the highest, and 1 being the lowest) to the following statements:
We anonymised the feedback collection process, to ensure we could receive honest and truthful responses, and were encouraged to receive statements from youth (which you could use!) who attended such as:
One legacy of the COVID-19 crisis could be a revolution in how we measure mental health and promote recognition that our wellbeing depends very much on the groups we are part of.
Part of the Centred-Self series, drawing on the voices of the Forum’s Cultural Leaders to examine the role of artists in appealing to hearts and minds to drive social change