Ma’ak National Mental Health and Wellbeing Program announced by the Ministry of Public Health

An educational program to promote mental health and wellbeing in Qatar has been launched by the National Mental Health Program Team in the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) in collaboration with  Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) and Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC). The ‘Ma’ak’ National Mental Health and Wellbeing initiative is designed to provide education and awareness programs targeting different population groups and aims to reduce stigma attached to mental health conditions.  Sheikh Dr. Mohamed Bin Hamad Al-Thani, Director of the Public Health Department at the Ministry of Public Health said that this initiative is another step in a concerted effort to provide valuable mental health literacy to the population. ‘Ma’ak’ means ‘with you’ in Arabic and is the collaborative effort of a sub-group comprising representation from the MoPH’s National Mental Health Program team, HMC’s Mental Health Service (MHS) education team and Hamad International Training Center (HITC), as well as PHCC.

Mahmoud Al Raisi, Executive Chair of the National Taskforce on Mental Health and Wellbeing and Chief of the Continuing Care Group at HMC said that this initiative will provide greater awareness about Mental Health for the population. The first sector addressed by the Ma’ak program is the education sector, and both HMC and PHCC have developed education materials for schools that have been distributed over the past few months.

HMC launched the Ma’ak National Mental Health and Wellbeing schools’ program in October as part of the World Mental Health awareness activities. A series of free webinars covered a range of educational materials for different audience groups within this sector, including school children, parents, teachers, and school administrators. Future educational sessions will be offered during school term. Some of the curriculum for schools will offer additional training modules based on the World Health Organization (WHO) Mental Health in schools’ program. Schools that wish register their interest in participating in future educational sessions on mental health and wellbeing can send an email to maak@hamad.qa.

Iain Tulley, the MoPH National Lead for Mental Health and Wellbeing, and CEO of the Mental Health Services at HMC said that great strides have been made in promoting awareness about mental health.  The Ma’ak National Mental Health and Wellbeing Program taskforce is chaired by Iain Tulley and currently includes representatives from MoPH, HMC and PHCC. Operationally the program is under the Kulluna umbrella, which is co-sponsored by ConocoPhillips-Qatar.