Adeje mayor José Miguel Rodríguez Fraga has presented a new mental health programme, ‘Mentalízate’. This is a cross-departmental project bringing together education, health, welfare and citizen participation, working together to offer a series of resources that will help people rediscover a healthy life balance personally and socially, mitigating the negative effects of the 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.
The mayor 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 socio-psychological consequences that we have all experienced, having lived through something as dramatic as this pandemic, without a guidebook!”
The mayor 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 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.”.
Joining the mayor at the launch of the campaign were the councillors for community welfare – Mercedes Delgado Vargas, health and quality of life –Amada Trujillo Bencomo, and education and citizen participation – Maria Clavijo Maza.
Wenceslao Peñate congratulated Adeje for developing the project. “Mental health problems have doubled and tripled, most of the problems are in the emotional sphere, fear, anxiety, worry....and now we are seeing depression, irritability, sleeping issues, increase in alcohol and substance abuse, and a rise in suicide attempts. Relationships are suffering, domestic violence has also increased. The good news is that most of the issues are in the milder 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 for groups of up to 20 people who have been feeling very vulnerable as a result of this pandemic. Group therapy helps increase hopes for a solution, recognising that there is a problem is a move towards resolving it. The isolation we have experienced during this time has also been surreal and we do need to reassert the belief in people that we are not alone”.
‘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.
Councillor Maria Clavijo Maza said that she was asking the ULL to help in a diagnostic exercise for the council itself. From this would emerge a series of actions to help workers and the population in general.
The Dzogchen community and the international yoga foundation Ati Yoga will contribute to working on emotional rebalancing through yoga sessions, mindfulness and dance, and there will also be cultural and humour-based activities. There will be age-related sessions for the very young to the older people in our community.
‘Mentalízate’ will 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.
Councillor Amada Trujillo Bencomo explained that “the pandemic created emotions problems, and her department were creating group and individual healing sessions. “The plan is to work to help reduce or eliminate the effects of the crisis in the resident population and work towards the creation of emotional wellbeing in those directly affected”.
Mercedes Vargas said, “children have been examples of responsible behaviour during this pandemic. They have been aware of the need to stay indoors at home when asked to, wear a mask when they went out. The pandemic has also highlighted the digital gap experienced in many households, which led us to create a programme to help children who need to bridge that gap. We have already donated tablets and data streams to 60 families. We are running classes in most cultural centres and also have to thank the Caixa Pro Infancia programme.”
