The Mental Health Connections: Cultivating Equity Conference kicked off today, with a focus on counseling in a variety of international settings, the strengths put toward and challenges faced abroad and domestically, and their global effects on mental health.

Everyone worldwide deserves access to high-quality counseling by competent counselors, and the need continues to increase due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. This virtual three-day event is part of our ongoing capacity-building efforts to help us all learn about efforts toward expanding access to mental health care in underserved and never-served populations.

This year’s agenda includes presentations by leading mental health professionals regarding mental health equity in their countries, work planned or being done to expand access to care, and why these efforts are essential for successful societies. It is a celebration of individual and cultural differences, and an opportunity to learn from counselors from across the U.S. and around the world as they share their research, clinical work, and training.

“We are proud and honored in the International Capacity Building department to be able to count over 60 presenters from around the world participating in this year’s conference,” said Dr. Wendi Schweiger-Moore, Director of International Capacity Building. I believe that all of us, NBCC staff, presenters, and conference registrants are going to learn much from one another in the next 3 days towards understanding how we are involved in professionalizing counseling, expanding mental health service access, and approaching practice, teaching, and research from a collaborative perspective.”

This is the second digital conference hosted by NBCC and Affiliates. All proceeds will support NBCC’s Mental Health Facilitator (MHF) program, funding grants for localized trainings to build mental health equity. The MHF program trains those outside of the mental health field in basic helping and referral skills to increase service capacity for meeting global and mental health needs.