The Role of Mental Health in Supporting Frontline Health Workers and Workforce During COVID | May 11, 2021

About the event

A virtual panel with Bay Area Global Health Alliance Members Americares, Chevron and Facebook.

Mental health disorders are a leading cause of the global burden of disease — and one of the most overlooked and underfunded health concerns of our time. Exposure to disasters, conflict, and poverty exacerbate risk factors for distress, impairments to daily functioning, and mental disorders. There is an urgent need to scale up mental health care locally and globally, as the majority of those who need it lack access to high-quality services. A virtual panel discussion will explore:

• How mental health resilience factors into the health workers’ capacity to care for others and the overall capacity and sustainability of health care systems
• How mental health services can help workers worldwide and what some companies are doing to provide care for their employees and build resilience
• How can we decrease stigma and scale access to mental health resources
• How has last year’s response differed from response during other disasters
• What innovations emerged and how do we do things differently moving forward

With representation across sectors, this discussion will provide best practice strategies of how best to improve people’s health on the frontlines locally and globally.

Panelists:

• Glenn Goss, DSW, US MHPSS Technical Advisor, Americares
• Janis Davis-Street, Ed.D, Manager, Global Public Health and Special Projects, Chevron
• Carrie Ting, Health Partnerships, Facebook
• Moderated by Ben Plumley, host of A Shot in the Arm podcast

Bios:

Glenn Goss, DSW, US MHPSS Technical Advisor, Americares

Dr. Glenn Goss is the global and US MHPSS Technical Advisor for Americares. His primary focus is to support the development and implementation of strategies to expand existing mental and behavioral health programs and build new MHPSS initiatives.  Prior to Americares he worked with international organizations in 40 countries throughout Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and the Middle East – including development work in South Africa during the transition from apartheid to a full democracy. Glenn’s long experience working in the humanitarian aid world has given him a deeper understanding of building community and organizational resilience, working with diverse cultures and those experiencing complex trauma. He is a Diplomat of the American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress and has a post-graduate certificate in Global Mental Health from the Harvard Refugee Trauma Program.

Janis Davis-Street, Ed.D, Manager, Global Public Health and Special Projects, Chevron

Janis Davis-Street manages the Global Public Health and Special Projects group of Chevron’s Health and Medical department. Her team manages public health programs for the workforce and communities where we operate providing education, awareness and preventive programs, and using epidemiological tools to evaluate employee and community health issues. Through internal and external partnerships, the team’s activities are targeted to prevent disease, support health system strength, and improve health equity and security. Prior to this role Janis managed the Chevron’s Wellness and Productivity team for 11 years. Prior to Chevron, Janis spent 15+ years as a nutritionist at NASA. Her interests include health disparities, corporate health and wellbeing, resilience, human performance, education outreach and chronic disease prevention. She has co-authored several publications on corporate wellness and more than 20 peer-reviewed scientific papers in the areas of nutrition and spaceflight. Janis is co-author of “Space Nutrition,” a middle school textbook. She has a doctorate in health education from University of Houston and master’s degrees in nutrition (from University of Alberta) and organizational leadership and learning (from George Washington University).

Carrie Ting, Health Partnerships, Facebook

Carrie is on the Health Partnerships team at Facebook, where she leads product partnerships for mental health. Her team collaborates with mental health experts and organizations to leverage Facebook’s platform to help decrease stigma and increase access to mental health resources.

Carrie is passionate about building partnerships that improve health outcomes and health equity. Prior to joining Facebook, her experience includes developing global health partnerships at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, launching a global research center for maternal and child health & gender equality at Stanford Medicine, and building 23andMe’s advocacy function to develop product and research partnerships with patient advocacy organizations. She completed her Bachelors at the University of California, Berkeley and her Masters at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, where she received the Frances and Arjay Miller Prize in Social Innovation.

Moderated by Ben Plumley, host of A Shot in the Arm podcast and senior advisor for the Alliance.

Watch here.