Mental Health - Preventing the 2nd Pandemic of COVID

Prevention is better than cure : How 7 Ecosystems and ECHAlliance Members came together on the theme of Mental Health in COVID Times

n the first of what will be a mini pop-up ecosystem series on the impact of COVID-19 on Digital Health services and provision, 7 of ECHAlliance’s Ecosystems from Northern Ireland, North West Coast England, Scotland, Brussels, Serbia, Montreal and the Highlands and Islands Ecosystem took part in a Pop-Up Ecosystem with our Social Prescribing champions, Elemental.

The topics included Digital Storytelling to help with resilience; Support for Doctors, Online Psychotherapy Support, Psychiatric Support Online, Wellbeing Support for Health Tec Clusters and Social Prescribing within Mental Health Services.

There was an agreement that there is a risk that mental health may become the 2nd Pandemic of COVID-19 and how prevention using online tools could help prevent and slow this down. The other key theme were the opportunities to connect the dots amongst our Global Connector community – whether it be linking up support for professionals; linking up French language support across three services based in French speaking Canada, Brussels and the Serbia presenter Nikola Cihoric whose service Doctors for Doctors was based in Switzerland.

We will return to the theme of Mental Health in August with the second in our series on Mental Health with a date and theme to be announced shortly, however there are already speakers confirmed. Our next Pop Up Ecosystem on June 10th will be targeting Dementia in COVID Times and will feature input from our newest ecosystems as well as our Strategic Partner Tunstall and we will hear from two exciting European Funded Projects led by and or including our Ecosystems.

You can also view the presentations here

Watch the recording of the Pop-Up on Mental Health in COVID Times: