Thursday (19/11) Center for Public Mental Health (CPMH) Faculty of Psychology UGM becoming one of the guest speaker on an online international mental health advocacy program initiated by Sally Spencer Thomas from New York. This event called “Why We Need a Global Mental Health Revolution Now !: Transformative Changes at The Intersection of Mental Health and Social Justice”. Diana Setiyawati, M.HSc.Psy., Ph.D., the head of CPMH had the opportunity to become the guest speaker at this event along with other mental health experts, including Sarah Gaer, Eduardo Vega, Ysabel Garcia and representatives from Youth Mental Health Canada.
#ElevateTheConvo is a hashtag that used in this activity on twitter. This event aims to determine public awareness as well as carry out advocacy which related to mental health issues around the world. In addition, this event also intended to make people aware about the importance of mental health revolution in society.
In contrast with general advocacy, this mental health advocacy is carried out online through social media, Twitter. In this activity, each speakers provides answers based on the questions about mental health issues that have been prepared in advance. The answers to the questions are presented concise and clear, with maximum of 180 characters for each answer. It is also followed with explanatory picture or link that becomes a reference for the answers.
After responding to the questions and tweets, the speakers will see the response of Twitter users one day after in order to measure the impact of this activity.
Corresponding with the topic, this event aims to provide understanding that mental health is everyone’s responsibility. Through training and community mentoring, it is hoped that it can create better support in order to overcome various mental health problems, for example one of the most occurred is suicide. Based on that idea, it is necessary to have a mental health revolution movement where all elements of society understand and fully involved to support and participate.
“Alhamdulillah, from here I know that what CPMH believes and strives for is right on track. In tune with what other people think from another part of the world” said Diana.