The two weeks of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) are a key moment in the global calendar for advocacy groups to create awareness, debate and media attention on critical issues relating to the SDGs, climate, human rights and development.

Women’s reproductive and sexual health cannot be separated from their mental health. If we are serious about parity of mental and physical health, we need integration.

In 2020, the founder of mental health venture capital organisation What If Ventures, Stephen Hayes, documented that mental health startups were approaching 1,000 in number.

Women with mental health conditions in Ghana often struggle to access maternal health services, which leaves them at higher risk during pregnancy and child birth.

The mental health movement that started in Cameroon in 2015 has completely changed how mental health is perceived and practiced.

Together with the Lancet Psychiatry, Mental Health Innovation Network, MHPSS.net, and with support from members of the Global Mental Health Network, we devised a new, weekly webinar series bringing in mental health policy makers and practitioners, advocates with lived experience, and researchers exploring the latest on COVID-19, to discuss and share the latest knowledge on COVID-19 and mental health.

A new free online course on Basic Psychosocial Skills has been made available by the WHO CC UTS.

Psychosis is not very visible in the global mental health discussion, which is actually quite surprising, as governments tend to think that psychosis should be a priority and their budgets tend to be allocated to this.

Last week The Global Mental Health Action Network held their virtual Annual Meeting. Open to their membership of over 1300 individuals from over 100 countries, the meeting was held between 2nd and 3rd June. 

Burnout was a massive challenge even before the Covid-19 pandemic. A 2015 study found that workplace stress and burnout contributed to at least 120,000 deaths in the US each year, for example, with additional costs of up to $190 billion or 8% of national spending on health care annually.

YCN is a four month module conceived with the objectives of building capacities and providing support to youth leaders in order for them to deliver psychosocial first aid services for their peers.

On 2nd and 3rd June, the Global Mental Health Action Network is hosting its Annual Meeting. This is a key opportunity for network members to engage with one another, learn from others and inspire advocacy for the coming year, and this year it will be fully virtual.

Lived experience is not a one-dimensional checkbox to check. We lived experiencer-s are also diverse. Some of us want to share our stories, some approach the experience with precision science, some might not want to say anything at all. It is time to acknowledge and respect this.

Together, we need to advocate for resources and a new pathway of care for our COVID-19 positive patients suffering from mental illness so that they do not continue to suffer alone.

Ahead of this year’s World Health Assembly (WHA) - the decision making body of the World Health Organisation - members of the Global Mental Health Action Network lay out why mental health for all by 2030 must be a key aim of the Assembly. 

What are the mental health effects of the pandemic for all of us, for the whole population? Research in recent months has painted a picture of more prolonged and more generalised damage to public mental health.

Speakers included Zeinab Hijazi (UNICEF), Chiara Servili (WHO), Matt Hughsam (citiesRISE), Yves Miel Zuniga (MentalHealthPH), Aviwe Fuanani (Waves For Change), and Joanna Lai (UNICEF).

n April 2020, as the world went into lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a small group of experts in the Global Mental Health space came together with United for Global Mental Health to bring you a series of informative webinars about how this pandemic is, and will, affect mental health systems, programmes and policies globally.

As we seek to recover from the pandemic and prepare to face its long-term impacts, finance ministers have the chance to set the stage for decades of sustainable development ahead.