COVID-19 pandemic

A report titled Gambling and Gaming During COVID-19: Prevalence, Implications and Strategies to Stay Safe provides an overview of the impacts of COVID-19 on the gambling and video gaming sectors.

The report shows more individuals are participating in online gambling despite the closure of physical gambling spaces. It also shows an increase in the amount of time spent and the number of people playing video games.

Check out this webinar recording about digital health solutions to support women with addictions, during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

The webinar features a panel of experts highlighting their research into:

Please register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meetin...m_OoAOYWnuXd1OYMzSAq

In the early stages of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the Ontario government put a number of measures in place to prevent the spread of the virus, which included closing schools and encouraging physical distancing. The impact of these measures on the mental health of those in adolescence, a critical developmental stage, was worrisome yet unknown.

For this reason, researchers at Western University set out to explore teens’ stress related to COVID-19 and its relationship to their daily behaviours and other indicators of psychological distress. 

Attached is a fun and interactive learning tool developed by Hands The Family Help Network to support staff in learning the basics of Infection Prevention & Control (IPAC) in a Jeopardy-style game format.

As an organization with multiple work locations, Hands the Family Help Network was challenged with tracking the attendance of staff across their various sites. Also, in  order to ensure maximum occupancy is not exceeded at the sites, a method for collecting adequate records for contact tracing was required. The tracking system needed to be cloud-based and available on any handheld device (such as a cell phone), to make it easy to use from wherever staff might be located (i.e., office, community, home, school, etc.). 

The Greenstone region includes five small communities and six First Nations, spread across 3,172 square km., with limited resources for their large geography. The Greenstone Collaborative has already been established for several years, holding regular meetings to work on local issues. With the pandemic, the communities found themselves with decreased staffing and were also lacking volunteers since seniors, who are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19, make up a large portion of Greenstone’s volunteers.

Join the brainXchange as they present the findings from a knowledge exchange project conducted by researchers at The KITE Research Institute (University Health Network) together with Behavioural Supports Ontario (BSO), Family Councils Ontario (FCO) and the Ontario Association of Resident's Councils (OARC). Together, they conducted a scoping review of published research that reported some aspect(s) of social connection among residents of long-term care (LTC) homes.

Check out this new resource that was created by a group of organizations in Thunder Bay to help close the gap in access to technology in the community.

Join panelists for a discussion about the Youth Reconnect Program Model Guide, and learn how to:

Register for this free session here: https://newstartwebinarseries.eventbrite.ca/

I wanted to let you know about this EENet Research Snapshot related to drinking and COVID-19.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused significant social changes that have never been seen before. These changes have included physical distancing, stay-at-home measures and closing schools to reduce the risk of transmitting the virus, as well as high unemployment and numerous deaths.

To support the mental health of all Canadians and address the increase in needs during this unprecedented time, Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) developed a COVID-19 and Mental Health (CMH) Initiative — a proactive response to provide urgent knowledge and evidence to support decision-making throughout the mental health responses to the pandemic. This Initiative is a collaboration with Health Canada (HC), the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) and six additional CIHR Institutes. 

This webinar will look at:

In this panel discussion webinar, experts will provide a local and provincial perspective on the response to substance use and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. They will explore the implications of the pandemic response on substance use and mental health, as well as the response measures that were taken, lessons learned and recommendations as pandemic restrictions across Canada begin to lift.

Speakers:

Check out Skylark's webinar slides on Substance use & COVID-19: A Virtual Workshop for Service Providers. 

This presentation explores:

The MTER (Mindfulness Training for Emotional Resilience ) program was originally developed for the purpose of providing accessible mindfulness-based mental health training for front-line clinicians working in community agencies with marginalized populations.

Bell Let’s Talk provided the original grant for its development to create user-friendly resources for clients and clinical tools for mental health practitioners.

The start of the pandemic in the North has been described by some as “everything going silent”. Small communities scattered across a large      geographical area suddenly disconnected. In the rural region of the Thunder Bay District, both educators and mental health providers immediately understood that relationships and connection would be critical to the well-being of children, youth, and families through the experience of COVID-19.

Join Youth Wellness Hubs Ontario (YWHO) and special guests to learn and discuss best practices in evaluating virtual service delivery for youth, in the context of COVID-19 and after.

Presenters:

Eva Serhal, Director, Virtual Mental Health and Outreach, ECHO Ontario Mental Health and ECHO Ontario, CAMH