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Cloud 9
You Are Not Alone

Our mental health is just as important as the physical. However, the awareness for mental health issues seems to be far lesser. Even some solutions are not as effective in tackling the problem.

With that, team Cloud 9 aims to dismantle the roadblocks for youths seeking help, through the Youth Action Challenge. Catch our past videos to discover their journey and experience up till this point!

Comment

Gordon Quek  2020-07-16 21:55:05

@Elizabeth Teo Thank you very much for sharing your personal story and for supporting us Elizabeth! Your story reminds us of the importance of our project, and we sincerely want to support those who are in-need of help! Thank you! :))

Gordon Quek  2020-07-16 21:49:00

Cloud 9: Dear all, thank you very much for your kind and encouraging words! Our project aims to provide positive and meaningful support for mental health concerns in our Singaporean society, and we sincerely look forward to your continued support! We would like to thank you for your questions and feedback for they will be valuable in further improving our work! // @beatrice As part of our 'Feedback Loop Programme', our participants - i.e. students - will bring back their solutions to schools, and together with their school management, both students and their schools will co-create meaningful changes to school mental health policies/regulations which are more responsive to the concerns and needs of youths. To support this process, we have been actively reaching out to teachers and educators - at the school management level - to showcase the effectiveness of our dialectical programme and their interest in it has been quite receptive and positive! Additionally, beyond schools, Cloud 9 strongly encourages our participants to implement their projects on the community-national level, and Cloud 9 would be glad to support them and link them up with the right stakeholders. // On the subject of changes, changes in institutional (mental health) policies and regulations do need time, and by promoting greater reciprocal discussions on the topic of mental health, we are confident that our participants and Cloud 9 are taking steps in the right direction to progressively make positive long-term changes. Nevertheless, some changes on the individual-level are immediate and extremely valuable - the emotional relief experienced by our participants knowing that they are not alone in their mental health struggles, the realization of how some seemingly harmless words/actions can actually be devastating to someone else’s mental well-being, and the awareness of how prevalent and severe mental health concerns are in our competitive Singaporean society. // And of course, the sharing of all these concerns are made possible through the creation of a safe and trusted space during our facilitated discussions! Lastly, we strongly believe that when students are able to co-create youth-centric mental health policies with their school management, this process of co-creation will subsequently build greater trust.

Loh An Lin ??  2020-07-16 14:07:38

Cloud9: Thank you all so much for your comments & stories :,) We really appreciate it. To answer Isabella Ow (@Bella) 1. Re/ the time-pressing and urgent nature of certain mental health concerns, our social media (solution) arm of Cloud 9 aims to address this by providing clear and concise help-seeking information/tips which are tailored to the individual’s circumstances. This will be done through a website and a Bot (@ https://t.me/THATfriendBot) which are currently in development. :) 2. Re/the feedback loop, you’re right in that it is a long term solution — meant to look at better refining in-school policies by giving students a chance to engage w their teachers & management, and to co-create better policies that reflect the needs of the student body. There are already clear MOE protocols in place when it comes to urgent mental health issues — but of course, the issue is of the cracks in implementation, which would differ from school to school. On how in-school policies can do better when it comes to responsiveness, we believe that an untapped potential is the student body. The current solution of peer supporters from MOE is on the right track — but the problem is that from our research, implementation of peer supporters have mostly been implemented that fosters greater distrust. What sort of system would be best to tap into the support networks that already exist to improve the timeliness of mental health support? We believe that the students in each school, with their teachers and school management, would need to discuss, resolve, and create this together, because each school's unique points, demographic, and issues faced by students are different. 3. This is not to discount the possibilities of an overarching framework, but we believe that the first step is to go through the consultative engagement process with the different student bodies, led by students seeking to make a change within their own environment. One area of growth for us can be to amalgamate and bring together common solutions from different schools, with the students in charge, to better bolster nation-wide youth mental health-care policies. But that would be a second step. :)

beatrice  2020-07-15 22:48:18

Awesome work on the mental health support issue amongst our youth today! I believe your solutions are an excellent way to increase accessibility and familiarity with resources, which students do't currently have. I would just like to understand further how the "Feedback Loop Programme" would be implemented from the ground? How does one ensure that the suggestions will be implemented in a timely manner such that students can see the change immeditely? After all, the school year is quite short. Furthermore, building trust is an inherently emotional process, how will this be regulated or implemented in a non-clinical way?

Elizabeth Teo  2020-07-15 22:19:50

I think I suffered from depression all my life. But when I was in school, I did't know that I had a condition and I did't know how and where to get help. And there is such a stigma associated with mental health and help seeking. You do't dare to talk about it even with close friends. I was diagnosed when I was 30 and by then I had severe depression and was acutely suicidal and regularly engaged in self-harm. If only I got help much sooner while I was in school, rather than let it escalate. Your project with the feedback loop helps create workable solutions for youth by youth. It helps schools develop concrete plans to promote help-seeking behaviour and mental health awareness. It goes a long way to destigmatising mental health issues among youth in schools. A chat bot is a safe and confidential way for youths to reach out and seek help and find useful resources to help themselves or their friends. If only I had these resources when I was in school, it would have made a major impact on my recovery journey. All the best!

Marc Van Huizen  2020-07-15 21:44:43

What a wonderful idea to make mental health support more accessible to youth! Thinking beyond this initial idea, a potential area to expand is to also include resources that help youth thrive (i.e., not only focusing on the population that requires clinical support, but also those who wish to increase their subjective well-being & cognitive appraisal of their life). The field of Positive Psychology would be a nice complement to what Clinical Psychology offers.

Wyin  2020-07-15 21:18:39

Kudos to the team for your contribution to the mental health space!!! It’s a really meaningful project and it has come a long way. Their solution has so much potential to grow in reach and is engaging and accessible to the youths! Really great job!

Isabella Ow  2020-07-15 18:20:02

Thank you to the team for the hard work in putting this together. As an educator, I feel that this framework has done well in offering a safe and supportive space for quality dialogic discussion about mental health issues. However, mental health circumstances can often occur in a way that requires timeliness and responsiveness. How would this framework (feedback loop) offer the flexibility for that? Right now it does seem that it's geared more towards the crafting of solutions that have the refinement of a policy initiative. I am curious about the timeframe for the feedback loop and how it factors in timeliness and responsiveness. Thank you :)

CattleTrail SwampRat  2020-07-15 14:44:18

Awesome ! Timely and much needed! Bold and to the point! There‘a quite a substantial number of youth at risk In this regard and much hurt, pain and suffering that needs management and healing. The current school Mental health support environment needs reform. Kudos to the team for tackling this head on. I really hope they get a chance to pilot the programme and scale it up. Would be amazing to get Relevant government agencies, not for profit and community based organisations on board. All the best cloud 9!

Lionel Fong  2020-07-15 11:58:38

Personally I feel that it's a very feasible project as it is easily accessible to all platform using their mobile devices, and also with the programme, it can help raise awareness to the mental health situation among the youth, which is widely talked about but only a small area solved. I think its a really great way to involve student body and youth themselves to step up to help themselves and the peers around them. Really look forward to seeing the final product!

Carmen V. Velasco  2020-07-15 08:00:19

Proposed solution plan to tackle this matter sounds optimistic. Exacerbated by social media, youth mental health has deteriorated significantly during the last years AND ironically a chatbot program foresees an excellent tool for youngsters to reach the needed resources discreetly. Likewise, the Feedback Loop Program offers an open platform for less introverted students to participate actively in creating and implementing efficient and updated health care for the student body. Thought and Created by/with Youth for Youth…Great Initiative Cloud 9!

Wenjia Dong  2020-07-14 22:01:14

I'm personally not a huge fan of chatbots so I was rather skeptical before trying the beta version. I was pleasantly surprised by how genuine the exchange felt. The pre-written responses were empathetic and encouraging, and gave actionable advice tailored to our local context. Looking forward to a complete version :-)

Loh An Lin  2020-07-14 21:51:34

Cloud9: thank you all for your comments! And to answer Chen Shichang, we are very excited to partner w gov-based stakeholders and schools to roll out the two initiatives once we have created an MVP! In the meantime, for the current research stage, we too have reached out to various stakeholders — including CHAT :) Excited for future collabs!

Wai Kit Ow Yeong  2020-07-14 21:20:34

The stigma against mental patients is so strong that even till today, I have known of cases in which patients encountered taxi drivers who refused to send them to IMH. There are still members of the public (and not necessarily of the older generation) who believe that mental illness is the result of evil spirits or demonic possession. Clearly, there’s a lot to be done to dispel such misconceptions. I’m heartened that much has been done in recent years to address this. But we need more ground-up initiatives like this one. While there might be many websites about mental health, a localised one tailored to the needs of youth in Singapore would be invaluable. A navigational chatbot would also allow youths who are too shy to seek help to at least make a start. As a teacher, I’d be glad to introduce it to my students! Young people who face mental health issues should be better supported—and initiatives like this can go a long way.

Nicole Tsoi  2020-07-14 21:14:00

Mental health is such an important issue and I’m glad it is being brought up. I am huge fan of the chatbot idea as it would be an easy and quick first step to make resources readily available.

Nicole Tsoi  2020-07-14 21:14:00

Mental health is such an important issue and I’m glad it is being brought up. I am huge fan of the chatbot idea as it would be an easy and quick first step to make resources readily available.

Chen Shichang  2020-07-14 17:59:10

There's Community Health Assessment Team (CHAT) - a group of healthcare professionals dedicated to promoting awareness of youth mental illness, and helping youths with mental health concerns. It would be great to partner with CHAT and provide more accessible content and resources to the youth. Love the chatbot idea, especially for youths who prefer not to chat over the phone or face-to-face.

Shi Ying Teng  2020-07-14 14:02:03

A great initiative to help youths navigate the mental healthcare landscape in Singapore! I look forward to seeing more updates for the chat bot :)

Caitlin Wee Fern  2020-07-14 12:50:53

Timely and much needed ground-up initiative :)

wee min  2020-07-14 12:00:26

A great idea to improve accessibility to mental health resources :-)

Loh An Lin ??  2020-07-14 11:54:07

link to the (telegram) chatbot! https://t.me/THATfriendBot (It’s still super glitchy our apologies ??)

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