Impact Story

The COVID-19 Pandemic heightened mental health amongst young people and became a concerning topic on social media and in school communities. It also surfaced the challenges of under-resourced Guidance Centres and undertrained officers.

So, we built local capacity by training unlicensed Guidance Designates so they can build programs to support their school communities, and give them access to a referral pathway through our Halad Mental Health Professionals.

Today, Halad to Health supports 180+ School Guidance Counsellors and Designates who are at the frontline of providing services to more than 100,000 students.

We do this because...

Disconnected programs and policies on the intersectional issues of mental health and sexual health, particularly teen pregnancy.

Mental health conditions costs

PHP 68.9 billion (USD 1.37 billion)

to the Philippine economy each year

Around

1 in every 4 Young Filipino

Exhibit depressive symptoms with suicidal ideation.

The Philippines has the highest

Teenage Preganancy

rates in Southeast Asia.

A meagre

PHP 5.69 per Filipino

is allocated by the government for Mental Health Programs.

There were

11,000 recorded live births

in the province of Bukidnon between 2017 and 2020.

Teenage pregnancy is declared a

National & Social Emergency

by the Philippine government.

“Adolescent parenthood is associated with a range of adverse outcomes for young mothers, including mental health problems such as depression, substance abuse, and posttraumatic stress disorder. Teen mothers are also more likely to be impoverished and reside in communities and families that are socially and economically disadvantaged.”

(Hodgkinson et al., 2014)

Our goal

Our goal is to establish standardised safe spaces across Mindanao, where equal and non-discriminatory Mental Health support are accessed, among many other youth health issues.

Redefining Safe Spaces

In schools, we are reinventing guidance offices where guidance counsellors can provide, and students can access:

  • Awareness and Education Resources
  • Training for students, teaching and non-teaching staff
  • Community Support through Halad to Health-trained peers
  • Guidance Counselling and Professional Intervention with our Halad to Health-trained and supported guidance officers, or with our Halad Professionals through our referral pathway.

In public spaces, we’re establishing Safe Space Kiosks where out-of-school youth can conveniently access support.

This space houses General Awareness Campaigns, Experiential Activations, Guidance Counselling, Peer Support and Mental Health Check-ins.

It also bridges access of the youth to various community extension services of Halad MH Professionals and Advocates from different partner institutions and organisations.

Our impacts are made possible, thanks to our network