PAU Professors Teach Digital Mental Health Series Hosted by Harvard

Starting next Friday, March 17th, three Palo Alto University (PAU) faculty will participate in a cutting-edge webinar series on Digital Mental Health, hosted by Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health Alliance. Distinguished Professor of Clinical Psychology Ricardo Muñoz, PhD, will co-direct the course and co-teach it along with Alinne Barrera, PhD, and Donna Sheperis, PhD. Learn more about the other educators in this series here.

This five-week, virtual series will take place on Fridays, March 17th to April 14th, from 9:00 to 10:30 a.m. PST.

“Our participation in this webinar series recognizes PAU as being at the forefront of digital mental health practice,” says Ricardo Muñoz, PhD.

This webinar series will address the growing field of digital mental health and offer practical tools and best practices to enhance virtual mental health care. Due to the pandemic, there has been an increase in the development of technology to support mental health practitioners in providing care remotely. This webinar series will bring you up to date with current mental health technology, cover the various purposes for using technology, review targeted apps for specific conditions, discuss legal and ethical issues, and explore how these new digital tools can be utilized equitably and safely in clinical practice and the promotion of community mental health.
It will also describe the potential of these tools to reach very large numbers of people and the opportunity to go beyond treatment and make preventive interventions available worldwide.

This series is intended for healthcare administrators, physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, psychologists, counselors, and social workers who work in mental health. All these disciplines will be eligible for continuing education credits. PAU students and staff are also welcome to join and can register under the “Allied Health Professional/Other” category on the registration page.

Five Topics to be Addressed

• Harnessing the Potential of Digital Mental Health Tools (Friday, March 17)
• Pros and Cons of TeleMental Health (Friday, March 24)
• Evaluation and Selection of Digital Mental Health Tools (Friday, March 31)
• Prevention and Treatment Digital Mental Health Tools for Underserved Communities (Friday, April 7)
• Emerging Digital Trends in Population Mental Wellness and Addiction Recovery (Friday, April 14)

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of the webinar series, participants will be able to: 

• List the taxonomy of digital interventions.
• Describe best practices for tele-mental health delivery and processes for supporting equity and cultural accessibility.
• Utilize online databases to develop individualized treatment plans with specific digital mental health apps through case-based learning.
• Identify how to implement low-barrier digital interventions for both the prevention and treatment of mental health disorders.
• Summarize best practices for online groups and discuss the use of new technologies for augmenting care, such as computerized adaptive testing for population health screening, technology-assisted meditation and mindfulness, and medication adherence tracking and wearable devices. 

Learn more about the webinar series or register here.