As a part of the British Virgen Islands’ (BVI) support for the reorganization of the country’s mental health care delivery model, the 7th session of the BVI Webinar Series was conducted on May 3rd and broadcasted under the theme “Working with Emotional Intelligence”. This Webinar was conducted by Dr. Virginia Rubaine (BVI Health Services Authority) and Dr. Claudina Cayetano PAHO/WHO Regional Advisor on Mental Health in accordance with the Government of the British Virgin Islands.
The emphasis of this series was to educate health care professionals and humanitarian aid workers in this challenging period of COVID-19 and the past natural disasters. Focusing on the importance of emotional intelligence, stress management, and self-care, this virtually delivered Webinar session, accessed by 44 participant-owned devices, presented the importance of emotional intelligence and its role in relating to others. According to Dr. Rubaine, “Emotional Intelligence is the ability to identify and manage one’s own emotions as well as the emotions of others.”
The Webinar attendees stand to significantly benefit from utilizing Emotional Intelligence in coping during this heartrending time. As they practice Emotional Intelligence, they will be better able to comfort themselves and others during this challenging period.
Dr. Claudina Cayetano, the second presenter at this session, explained self-care as knowing your values and learning how to respond to your stress levels to stay healthy. Stress and burnout are not a new concept to healthcare workers (e.g., increases in workload, time management, inappropriate referrals, safety issues, and role ambiguity). Learning the signs of stress and burnout is essential to clinical and non-clinical personnel as it has been proven to affect one’s mental health negatively. In managing stress, Dr. Cayetano emphasized how important it is to focus on why you became a health care worker and make time for self-care.
As the British Virgin Islands eagerly await the return to some normality post-natural disasters and the ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic, the country’s frontline workers continue to fight all the psychosocial ailments brought about due to these states of emergencies. To this, both the clinical and non-clinical health care providers attending were beyond appreciative of this webinar session as many were well engaged, presenting several questions as it pertains to the topic area. In addition, the post-session evaluation completed by those in attendance revealed that the session was well received and informative.
Please visit (https://www.paho.org/en/events/bvi-mhpss-webinar-series-working-emotional-intelligence) to view a recorded version of this session and the following link for the previous webinar and relevant program materials (https://www.paho.org/en/bounce-back-stronger-bvi).