The National Board for Certified Counselors and the NBCC Foundation hosted their fourth global virtual conference, Mental Health Connections: Advancing Global Health Equity, from Nov. 29–Dec. 1, which brought together almost 500 participants and presenters from more countries than ever before.
Dr. Wendi Schweiger-Moore, NBCC’s Director of Global Capacity Building, stated, “We were so excited to have a significant increase in registration this year that included an increase in registration from around the world.”
This year’s event highlighted education, training, practice, and research geared toward increasing mental health equity through counseling and other initiatives that focus on history, challenges, and resilience of the individual, community, culture, and country.
Presenters shared insights on the state of mental health in communities across the globe, the unique challenges they face, and the creative solutions they have generated in order to address them. The insights shared by presenters opened the door for many thought provoking and inspiring conversations amongst participants.
Between the live conference and the session recordings, up to 33 hours of continuing education (CE) is available to attendees.
Keynote presentations included:
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Six Years of Collaboration in Belize: Successes, Challenges, and Outcomes, by Monica Manzur, a doctoral student and Residence Hall Director at Texas Christian University; Onando St. Bernard, Counseling Coordinator for the Community Counseling Center, Community Rehabilitation Department of the Belize Ministry of Human Development, Families, and Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs; and Dr. Guy Ilagan, Associate Professor of Counselor Education in the Zucker Family School of Education at The Citadel. In 2016, Dr. Eve Aird, a university provost in Belize, noticed a surge in suicide attempts and deaths among adolescents and young adults. Dr. Aird consulted with a peer at a U.S. university and arranged for U.S. trainers to cofacilitate a series of trainings on suicide assessment and intervention skills with her staff. Attendees learned about this evolving partnership and considerations in developing and continuing partnerships such as the one featured in this presentation.
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Conducting Transnational Mental Health Training: Planning and Executing Sustainable Initiatives, by Dr. Mehmet N. Akkurt, Assistant Professor and Program Coordinator, Counseling Department, Lamar University. The lack of mental health equity around the world has become more apparent since the increased need for mental health services caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. By training lay professionals who are already providing support to their communities, their impact can become stronger. Attendees learned how efforts to increase access to mental health care around the world have focused on empowering local resources rather than temporary solutions.
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A Day in the Life of a Counselor is a continuation of a series of presentations first recorded during the 2022 Mental Health Connections conference. This year’s recorded interviews featured counselors from six countries who are studying counseling in the United States and discussed their professional journeys, as well as the challenges they saw in applying knowledge and skills they learned during these studies to clients, students, and families in their home countries. They also discussed their dreams of contributing to advancing mental health equity in their home countries and communities and best practices to meet the mental health needs of international students and immigrants in the United States. Shabari Battacharyya from India, Dr. Hana Meshesha from Ethiopia, Sabina Sabyrkulova from Kyrgyzstan, Laetitia Tokplo from Benin, Mihee Woo from South Korea, and Lindai Xie from China discussed local mental health challenges in their home countries and strengths, traditions, and coping mechanisms that help people meet those challenges as well as observations about how to contextualize what they are learning in the United States to best provide services to clients from their home countries.
"We think it is important to include not only presentations about counseling and mental health development in other countries, but also presentations about international partnerships across borders and practices in other countries that counselors in the U.S. can learn from," stated Eugenie Yang, Manager of the Global Capacity Building department.
Another highlight of the Mental Health Connections conference was the opportunity to donate to one of NBCC's Mental Health Facilitator (MHF) partners, which this year is the Global Livingston Institute (GLI). GLI is a nonprofit research institute dedicated to developing strategic partnerships in both East Africa and the United States with a focus on education and social impact aimed at stimulating innovation, empowerment, collaboration, conversations, and personal growth. GLI and NBCC have worked together for more than a decade training community leaders in Uganda to support individuals with mental health concerns. The MHF program provides introductory instruction on the recognition of mental health conditions, developing basic skills to assist those in distress, and the ability to identify more serious symptoms for professional referral. The program is built to bridge a significant gap in communities with limited access to services. Individuals who participate in MHF trainings can support their work with skills that complement existing mental health care resources within a community. The opportunity to support this important cause is available here. Donation recipients receive 100% of the proceeds to support their MHF programming.
More information about next year's conference and the invitation to submit a presentation proposal will be available in the summer of 2024.
