Why We Need a Global Mental Health Revolution Now! Transformative Changes at the Intersection of Mental Health & Social Justice (#ElevateTheConvo)

When: November 19, 2020

8:00PM ET/7:00PM CT

6:00PM MT/5:00PM PT

November 20

1:00AM London

12:00PM Sydney

Where: Twitter #ElevateTheConvo

What: 1-hour conversation. Just follow the #ElevateTheConvo hashtag on Twitter and join in as our panelists (global mental health advocates) talk about a mental health revolution.

Feel free to join in the conversation. If you are new to participating in a Twitter Chat here is a brief  "how to" article. At the time of the chat just put the hashtag #ElevateTheConvo in the Twitter search field, then hit the "latest" tab and you will see the most recent posts. When you refresh the search tab new posts will emerge.

Who: All those interested in learning about a mental health revolution.

Overview: Calling for the Global Mental Health Revolution

By Eduardo Vega, Founder and CEO, Humannovations

A healthy future for the human race demands a global mental health revolution. A revolution in how we view, talk about, support and enhance the health of all people everywhere. A revolution in which the concept of mental health itself is reclaimed and transformed. In which it is recognized as the fundamental intersecting point of individual well-being, community prosperity, social justice and global socioeconomic welfare.

The international pandemic of COVID-19, long-overdue consciousness of police brutality including sanctioned homicide, institutionalized racism and colorism; the crucial emergence of #metoo and repudiation histories of sexism, clerical sexual abuse and others, have raised the stakes and the need for collective transformative change. In an era in which anxiety, distress and depression are rampant worldwide, for very justifiable reasons, our communities can no longer afford to treat mental health as a secondary or private concern.

This is not a philosophical matter. The death of Daniel Prude, dehumanized by a mask and cruelly restrained before he was killed by police after his concerned brother called for assistance, brutally demonstrates the deadly intersection of social stigma and discrimination, institutionalized racism and other bias, and criminalization of people experiencing mental health challenges.

Unfortunately Mr. Prude’s situation is nowhere near unique. Around the globe people are jailed, tormented and killed in the context of mental health and suicide interventions. Meanwhile civil and human rights are taken from citizens in nearly every major country of the world when it comes to the provision of services. What should be care feels like punishment, and a simple call for help can be life sentence, or a death sentence.

In a world where billions are living with, and sometimes struggling with, mental health conditions, where nearly a million lives are lost annually to suicide including hundreds of thousands of children, this cannot stand.

Personal and community experience of mental and emotional well-being is at the center of a healthy societies. The impacts and intersection of these issues in today’s world means that the closeted, siloed and limited approaches to mental world must come to end. We must engage a complete revisioning of social welfare in terms of equality, dignity and mental health for all.

The need for a Global Mental Health Revolution has been apparent for years. Eliminating any role for law enforcement in mental health care must be our first priority. But distress around the world, political toxicity, social conflict, suicide, addiction and disability have reached a peak in which delaying revolutionary change is more dangerous than tolerating the status quo.

Every day young children are exposed to public stories related to rape, mass murder, racist hatred, abuse of power and sex crimes. In addition to psychological impacts they already encounter, the trauma they are growing up around, and secondary effects of seeing their families struggle, means our next generations are vulnerable to the worst mental health since world war era.

Meanwhile COVID-19 restrictions mean school-age youth are denied access to their peers and natural social learning including the opportunity of peer support. They are growing up with unshakeable ideas that the world is on fire, the adults in the room are untrustworthy, and the future is doomed as a result of climate change. Our children deserve better, they need a better future. They need transformative change.

Mental health is a human right, essential to just and healthy communities.

The Global Mental Health Revolution starts from an understanding of mental health as a human right and a key to social welfare. But is inspired by needs that reside in every individual, that pervade every community. Needs that we all share. The need for emotional safety, opportunities and social support to realize our potential; the need to eradicate cultures of trauma, despair and injustice, to replace them with communities of compassion and dignity.

Mental health impacts reside squarely at the intersection of human rights, health equity, social justice and culture, ecology and economics in every community. But these impacts including illness, disability, unemployment, social exclusion, incarceration and suicide, are not experienced equally. Economic disempowerment, racism, political suppression and discrimination, intergenerational and cultural trauma are significant in the legacy of medical psychiatric institutions which dominate mental health care at its extremes and minimize or disregard in many other cases.

Mental health is about all of us. For a sustainable future for the human species it cannot be an afterthought. Because the challenges we face as a species are immense and intricately connect us, we cannot afford to ignore the resource of good mental health, or the risk that mental ill-health brings to every area of our endeavors. Mental health must become everybody’s business, or it will become everyone’s burden.

Mental well-being and mental illness on the national level are directly connected to income inequality, which is increasing in the United States and other countries. Meanwhile the health of billions around the world is underserved, addiction and suicide rates increase, and governments continuously underfund resources for their communities’ welfare.

Mental health in all its complexities is the essence of wellness, is at once an indicator of how communities treats its members, and the key to prosperous societies. Mental health connects us all and is experienced by all, but it is felt differently and treated differently based on variables including socioeconomics, race and ethnicity, even neighborhood.

We know now that mental health is not about what happens to an individual in their individual place and time. Mental health belongs to everyone- it is the right of all of us, not the privilege of a few. It is at the core of our social ecology. It is the right focus for a transformed future based in healthy societies and human dignity.

The call for Global Mental Health Revolution has already been heard– but the choir is not large enough, the tent is not yet big enough. Every community, every experience has a part to play.

In this crucial and courageous conversation your voice is needed, your action is critical. Join us to instigate a radically healthier future for all. Join the conversation today!

Email: Eduardo Vega [email protected]

www.mentalhealthrevolutionnow.neocities.org 

In this #ElevateTheConvo, we hear from global mental health advocates about why this is the time for a #GlobalMentalHealthRevolution.

Questions

1. WHY do we need a Global Mental Health Revolution?
2. WHO should be involved in the Global Mental Health Revolution?
3. WHAT are the priority issues and frameworks in the Global Mental Health Revolution?
4. HOW will we move the Global Mental Health Revolution forward? What are the tools and processes needed?

Panelists

Iden Campbell

@IdenCampbell

Iden is a nationally known activist in the transgender community, speaking on suicide prevention, transgender health and wellness. He is the Founder and Executive Director of The Campbell Center, a peer-run agency in Washington, D.C. for individuals living with mental health and addictions challenges.

Dr. Diana Setiyawati

@DianaSetiyawati

Diana Setiyawati is the director of the Center for Public Mental Health at the Faculty of Psychology, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia. Her PhD research at University of Melbourne was about integrating psychologists into primary health care in Indonesia.Furthermore, she has supported and facilitated the Indonesian government to develop evidence-based policies.

Eduardo Vega

@EduardoVegaSays

Eduardo Vega is an internationally recognized thought leader in recovery-oriented programs and policy, consumer/patient rights, and suicide prevention, whose work continues to drive the forefront of change for public health and mental health worldwide. He is founder and CEO of Humannovations, a consulting and training firm providing innovative solutions for mental health and suicide prevention internationally, fueled by social justice and the “lived experience” of people who have been there. 

Sheryl Boswell

@YMHCanada

Sheryl Boswell is an educator with elementary, secondary, post-secondary and adult education students, a suicide loss survivor, a child and youth mental health expert and the Executive Director of Youth Mental Health Canada, a grassroots, youth-led, charitable non-profit organization focused on education, support and advocacy.

Ysabel Garcia

@EstoyAquiC

Ysabel Garcia is a Dominican-born immigrant who identifies as a psychiatric system survivor and experiences suicidal intensity since childhood. She is the founder of Estoy Aqui, an initiative that provides community care circles and racial justice-based training to Latino/Latinx and Black community members as tools to lower their rates of suicide.

Sarah Gaer

@SarahGaer

Sarah Gaer is a suicide loss survivor and a Master’s Level Clinician with twenty years’ experience in the field of mental health care. Since 2012, Sarah has worked as a Suicide Prevention Specialist focused on men in the middle years and first responders with Riverside Trauma Center and is a Board Member for United Suicide Survivors International.