The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted people’s lives on various levels: occupational, physical, social, and emotional. The uncertainty around the virus that swept over the world and disruptions to daily lives increased anxiety and stress levels for many individuals and families. As the global pandemic stretches out longer than hoped for, it continues to take a toll on mental health.
October 10th marks World Mental Health Day, and this year, the campaign “Mental health care for all”, aligns with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3 calling for universal health coverage and services. Given the greatly diverse situations and qualities of mental healthcare available for people worldwide, it is a call to action for government leaders and stakeholders to discuss the different ways in which universal mental healthcare can be achieved. Policymakers should also consider the exacerbated circumstances that groups with vulnerability risks, such as children, face today. While most children and adolescents will not use drugs, those who do are often affected by vulnerabilities beyond their control such as poor familial support, exposure to violent environments, poverty, poor opportunities for education, and presence of mental disorders. All of these can be, and in many cases, have been affected for the worse by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Investing in effective evidence-based prevention programs will lead to happy, resilient children and youth becoming contributing members of their community and society. Providing children with warmth and care will help them develop healthily and provide them with skills and opportunities to flourish in life. The Science of Care series of the ‘Listen First’ initiative can help parents and caregivers with information on providing affection, care and a supportive environment to children. The upcoming new ‘Listen First’ series, the Science of Skills, will target children’s and youth’s social and emotional skill development and features engagement materials to help stakeholders and partners use and implement ‘Listen First’ within an effective substance use prevention system.
If you’re interested in using the ‘Listen First’ materials, please reach out to Ms. Elizabeth Mattfeld, UNODC PTRS, Global Programme Coordinator, at elizabeth.mattfeld@un.org. If you would like to keep up-to-date with news on ‘Listen First’, subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here. Lastly, for those interested, more information on building an effective national drug use prevention system can be found in the UNODC/WHO International Standards on Drug Use Prevention.
Made possible with the generous support of France.