The mayor of Adeje, José Miguel Rodríguez Fraga, has presented a new mental health programme being launched in the municipality, ‘Mentalízate’, which is is a cross-departmental project bringing together education, health, welfare, and citizen participation, to offer a series of resources that will help people rediscover a healthy life balance personally and socially, mitigating the negative effects of the Covid pandemic.
The council has launched this project, in collaboration with an expert in psychology from the University of La Laguna, Wenceslao Peñate, and Eduardo Vera Barrios, a psychiatrist dealing with personality issues. These two will be working with local administrations and the population in general, and Dr Vera will be offering group therapy sessions to help people deal with emotional concerns.
‘Mentalízate’ will have four pillars: training, meditation, health, and activities. Experts will be involved in helping people identify their needs and work to address them. People will also be encouraged to use meditation and outdoor activities as fundamental tools in preventing and dealing with stress, anger, negativity, and to work on increasing resilience, the capacity to communicate feelings, empathy, assertiveness and healthy relationships.
‘Mentalízate’ will also focus on the emotional needs of children and young people who may be at risk as well, and a socio-educative programme is being designed with them in mind which will include school and study aids, a range of parallel activities and other free-time events. These will be designed to promote integrated development and social inclusion for those younger people who may need it.
Mayor Fraga said that “this project is part of a commitment to our community, working to find solutions to the problems caused by this pandemic. It is increasingly obvious that one of the matters of concern that has arisen is the impact of socio-psychological consequences that we have all experienced, having lived through something as dramatic without a guidebook.”
He continued, “The programme is about finding the right tools to help in healing mental health. We are looking at evolving a series of activities that are all designed to help in improving the quality of life, as a community, given what we have all suffered through together, in particular the more vulnerable members of our society, older people or young people who have often had to hear accusations that they are the ones spreading the infection. We also need to care for those who have been on the front line working directly with the public, health care workers, council staff, social welfare teams, etc”.
Wenceslao Peñate congratulated Adeje for developing the project, “Mental health problems have doubled and tripled, most of the problems are in the emotional sphere, such as fear, anxiety, and worry, and now we are seeing depression, irritability, sleep issues, and increase in alcohol and substance abuse, and a rise in suicide attempts. Relationships are suffering, domestic violence has also increased. However, the good news is that most of these issues are currently at the milder end of the scale, but we do need to work to help people overcome their fears and believe in the future”.
Eduardo Vera Barrios said the project was essential to get rid of the taboo surrounding mental health issues. “I will be offering group therapies of up to 20 people who have been feeling very vulnerable as a result of the pandemic. Group therapy helps increase hopes for a solution, recognising that there is a problem, is a positive move towards resolving it. The isolation we have experienced during this time has also been surreal so we need to reassert the belief in people that we are not alone.”
