It is no doubt that our recent situation -- this pandemic -- has struck the multisectoral discipline
in the health and medical field. The continuous increase of mental instabilities among individuals
is one of the prominent issues in this area. This gave rise to the rampant execution of webinars
that are addressing mental health.
Webinars are allowing a certain organization to widely disseminate information, promote their
causes and advocacies, and reach those who are in need. Moreover, we are lucky for having
the opportunity to learn new knowledge or even gain social support from the organizations and
participants for free. Thus, the significance of webinars is evident as one of the responses on
this matter.
Take for instance the webinar event of CvSU - FISHGENS last March 11, 2021. This religious
organization has conducted a discussion about Psychological First Aid (PFA), entitled “CHEER
UP: Psychological First Aid Training”, with the guest speaker Dr. Paulito V. Hilario. This is where
Dr. Hilario informed the participants the importance of PFA and how to properly implement it.
Another event is entitled “Mindfulness and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy” from Our Lady of Pilar
Montessori Center last April 24, 2021, with the guest speaker Mr. Mokiel Diaz Saret. The talk
revolved around the recommendations on how to be mindful and how to handle certain behavior
through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Up until today, there are still tons of mental health
webinars.
Furthermore, webinars are a good medium to extensively communicate the updates on our
body of knowledge. A good example of this is the webinar session last April 30, 2021, from the
Department of Science and Technology (DOST) and the National Academy of Science and
Technology (NAST) entitled “Measuring Mental Health and Wellbeing during Pandemic”, with
some notable speakers in the field. In this event, Acd. Allan Benedict I. Bernardo has presented
the newly developed measuring tool on anxiety, which is the Coronavirus Pandemic Anxiety
Scale (CPAS-11), and its comparison to the prior instruments. More discussions of new
information in this field are perceivable.
Looking at the other sector of health, webinars are used to spread information, especially now
about the COVID-19 Virus. Last August, 2020, the PLM Supreme Student Council has
conducted a three-part webinar entitled “COVID You know? Debunking Misconceptions on
COVID-19 and Understanding the Pandemic Crisis”, with some guest speakers who has
expertise in this matter.
Additionally, this pandemic did not stop organizations to continually train individuals through
webinars. The University of Caloocan City is scheduled to conduct a webinar event on May 24,
2021, which is titled “Basic First Aid Responses and Emergency Ethics”.