An awareness event of Wellness Ambassadors programme held in early 2020.
Region’s first school-based mental health programme has led to a significant change in the knowledge, attitude and behaviours of the students within a short span of time.
The Wellness Ambassadors programme is an initiative aiming to promote mental health and reduce mental illness stigma in Qatar schools. Teams from Qatar Foundation (QF), Sidra Medicine, and The Learning Center worked alongside the three QF schools to establish the programme.
The project was evaluated on a number of validated surveys to measure the change of knowledge, attitudes and behaviours towards mental health before and after the implementation of the project, according to Division Chief of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Sidra Medicine, Dr. Ahsan Nazeer.
“Our data showed that the project led to a significant change in the knowledge, attitude and behaviours of the students towards mental health despite the school year being cut short due to COVID-19 pandemic. To the best of our knowledge this is the first and only project of its kind in Qatar and the region. This project also offers the ambassadors an opportunity to advance their social and professional skills as well as serving their community,” he said.
According Dr. Nazeer, it has been evident in many studies conducted in Qatar and the region that public mental health literacy was poor.
“Moreover, the stigma against mental illness makes it harder for the public to seek knowledge about mental health and even hinders seeking treatment sometimes. The Wellness Ambassadors project is founded on evidence-based interventions to improve mental health literacy and reduce mental illness stigma,” said Dr. Nazeer.
The pilot trial of the project was launched in three Qatar Foundation high schools in the academic year of 2019-2020. The project started with a pre-launch survey to assess the level of mental health literacy and mental illness stigma in high school students. It was led by Sidra Medicine and the resident Dr. Ali Khalil, who is now a forensic psychiatry fellow at Hamad Medical Corporation.
“Individual students called Wellness Ambassadors were selected after a rigorous selection process. Ambassadors received intensive training on bullying, depression, anxiety, suicide and self harm and they were also trained to refute common cultural misconceptions about mental health. They also had ongoing supervision with school counsellors and project team,” said Dr. Nazeer.
Wellness Ambassadors’ role included holding daily talks with peers and family members about mental health-related topics, weekly posts on their social media accounts about mental health and stigma, monthly group discussions and seminars, semi-annual joint ambassadors meeting and group campaigns, and annual ambassadors conference.
“The ambassadors were asked to engage in daily talks with their peers about mental health, post weekly on their social media platforms, facilitate monthly seminars where we invited guests to talk about a specific mental health-related topic.
"They were also asked to organise a group campaign involving all the ambassadors in the three schools, their campaign for last year was on hazards of smoking, e-ciagrettes and vaping,” said Dr. Nazeer.
