MC Tools—4

Dealing with Depression

We are sharing some tools to support personal growth, relationship health, organizational development, and overall effectiveness for mission/aid workers. Hopefully you will find them to be creative, useful, and at times even fun. They are some of our favourites.

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These items build upon the 12 tools for “Running Well and Resting Well” that we included as a chapter in Doing Member Care Well (2002). More tools and guidelines specifically for team building are included in our “Tools for Team Viability” article, in the member care book we edited in 1992.

 

Here is a creative animation piece on depression (four minutes) called I Had a Black Dog by Matthew Johnstone. It is based on his book Living with a Black Dog: His Name is Depression. Have a watch!

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More on Depression

Depression was the theme of the 2012 World Mental Health Day (10 October 2010). Depression currently accounts for the third highest burden of disease globally, and is predicted to be the highest burden by 2030. Depression is significantly higher for females than males and is the leading cause of disease burden for women across all countries and income levels. Suicide (which is closely related to depression) is the second most common cause of death among young people globally.

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For more information on depression:

See the materials prepared for this year’s World Mental Health Day by the World Federation for Mental Health (Depression: A Global Crisis) available in English, Hindi, Japanese, and Spanish:
 http://www.wfmh.org/00WorldMentalHealthDay.htm 

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See the material at:
International Foundation for Research and Education on Depression

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See the information and fact sheet on depression by the World Health Organization:
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/notes/2012/mental_health_day_20121009/en/index.html

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For more information on the current efforts to promote mental health and reduce the mental health treatment gap see the World Health Organization’s draft of the Global Mental Health-Action Plan 2013-2020.

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 And He shall wipe away every tear room their eyes,

and there shall no longer be any death;

there shall no longer be any morning, or crying or pain;

the first things have passed away.

Revelation 21:4