Arjun Kapoor

We invite you to a special event on Wednesday, March 26, from 3 to 4:30 pm EDT (Montreal time), with Arjun Kapoor.

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Speaker

Arjun Kapoor
Program Director & Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Mental Health Law & Policy, Indian Law Society (Pune, India).

Biography

He is a lawyer and psychologist with experience in human rights, access to justice and mental health. Arjun has facilitated the capacity building of over 3000 formal and informal stakeholders on the implementation of the Mental Healthcare Act, 2017 (India), National Mental Health Policy, 2014 and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. He provides technical support to governments in India and low- and middle-income countries to develop their mental health and suicide prevention strategies. Arjun has also co-led a project supported by the Policy Lab, Wellcome Trust to pilot creative tools such as serious games for obtaining policy insights on mental health from persons with lived experience, caregivers, community-based organizations and panchayats (village councils) in India.

Title

Youth and community involvement in mental health innovations in India.

Abstract

Arjun will talk about participatory research, and policy and advocacy programs he leads in India. He will focus on two projects specifically, that he currently co-leads Outlive and ENGAGE. Outlive is a youth suicide prevention program which addresses urban youth suicide in India by engaging with young people through 1) Outlive Chat – a peer support program which trains youth volunteers to provide chat-based emotional support to youth in distress or contemplating suicide and 2) Youth Action for Suicide Prevention Fellowship which trains and mentors youth leaders to engage with policymakers for driving systemic changes for youth suicide prevention. Outlive has been recognised by the World Health Organisation and UNICEF as a good practice example of participatory approaches to service design in youth mental health. Engage is an adolescent suicide prevention program which trains secondary and higher secondary public school teachers as gatekeepers to identify, support and refer adolescents for suicide prevention support in Chhattisgarh (a state in Central India). ENGAGE is implemented in collaboration with the Directorate of Health Services and Department of School Education and the State Council for Educational Research & Training, Government of Chhattisgarh. So far, ENGAGE has delivered the e-training to over 3500 teachers.