The Ministry of Social Development and Family, represented by the Family Development Department, organized a group of awareness-raising workshops in conjunction with World Mental Health Day, which falls on October 10 of each year and aims to spread public awareness of mental health issues and psychological problems, and the danger of psychological stress and its relationship to other diseases.

The workshops took place at Al Jazeera Academy, Umm Maabad Preparatory School for Girls, and the Wifaq Family Counseling Center for three days. This is to activate World Mental Health Day and raise awareness of its concept, the importance of psychological peace, and its relationship to mental health.

Ms. Amani Al-Ruwaili, a certified life skills trainer, presented the first workshop at Al Jazeera Academy. It was entitled The Impact of Social Media on Mental Health, during which she discussed the negative impact of social media on mental health and its effects on the individual and society.

Mrs. Amani Al-Ruwaili also spoke about methods of protecting mental health from harmful uses and replacing them with beneficial behaviors to build a conscious and intellectually and psychologically educated generation capable of dealing with social media, aware of its positives and unaffected by its negatives.

On the same day, the life skills trainer Nahya Al Marri presented a workshop entitled We Are Equal. It sheds light on some of the wrong practices of students, ways to avoid them, and replace them with educational and humanitarian attitudes to create a generation that is aware and sophisticated in its thinking, in addition to eliminating bullying behavior in schools.

During the workshop, she discussed the morals Muslims must have, the principles and rules regulating their behavior, and the extent to which good and bad words reflect on the self. She also explained the concept of bullying and how to build influential personalities in society.

The second workshop, Psychological Burnout, was held at Umm Maabad Preparatory School for Girls, targeting the educational staff, and presented by life skills trainer Kholoud Al-Abdullah, during which they explained the concept of psychological burnout and its dimensions.

The World Mental Health Day activities were concluded at the Family Counseling Center (wifaq), targeting employees, leaders, and managers. Afrah Al-Yafei, a trainer in the field of self-development, presented an interactive workshop entitled Job Burnout. It also included several topics, namely defining the term job burnout, understanding its causes and symptoms, its effects on mental and physical health, how it can affect work performance, how to develop relaxation and stress management skills, and using techniques to reduce psychological stress.