The eMental Health team in Mental Health Reform have developed a rapid briefing paper for the COVID-19 crisis entitled “Guidance on Telemental Health for mental health services and practitioners”.
The COVID-19 crisis has direct mental health implications in a number of ways, and also creates some major organisational, operational and logistical challenges for the various players in the Irish ecosystem of providers of mental health services and supports.
The Irish eMEN team have compiled the following rapid collection of available guidance material on telemental health. The focus is especially on material that may be relevant in the immediate context of the COVID-19 period of social distancing and lock-down, where quick decisions and actions may be necessary to begin providing mental health services online whilst maintaining as much quality assurance as possible. The collection includes both guidance specifically prepared in response to the crisis and other available sources of practical guidance that may be especially helpful just now.
It also includes a range of materials that pre-existed the current crisis, as well as material that takes a deeper and more measured view on the pros and cons of telemental health and the specific challenges and issues it raises for mental health practice. This may also be useful for interested organisations and practitioners just now, and will be particularly important in the period after the crisis when the sector re-groups and reflects.
What is eMEN?
The eMEN project brings together a range of key stakeholders across NWE countries (Netherlands, France, Germany, UK, Belgium and Ireland) aiming to promote the development and implementation of eMental Health. eMental health involves a broad spectrum of applications of digital technology in mental health services and supports, ranging from mobile apps for self-help to ‘blended therapy’ that combines face-to-face and online therapeutic supports.
The eMEN project partners include mental health service providers, mental health professional organisations, user and other third sector organisations, SME developers of eMental health products, and university research departments. Collectively, the partners comprise a unique transnational, multisectoral, and multidisciplinary consortium motivated to encourage and support the development and utilisation of eMental health products and services to address key mental healthcare challenges, initially in the NWE countries but also across Europe and internationally. Mental Health Reform is the sole Irish partner of the eMEN project.
