January 2026 – A New Year Community Update
Hi All,
January has been a busy month of getting back on track after the holidays and discussing plans for what we want to achieve this year.
Here’s some of updates on what we have been up to or are planning for the next few months including –
- Global Mental Health Fellowship Reunion
- Effective Mental Health EMH Community Gathering
- Our Next Fellowship
- Artificial Intelligence Mental Health Initiative (AIMHI)
- In person AI and Therapy series – Georgetown University
Our First Fellowship Launched and Sailed!
We’ve successfully completed our first Global Mental Health Fellowship!
With over 40 fellows led in 4 consecutive courses.
And very complimentary feedback –
Fellows reported concrete professional outcomes and action plans resulting from their participation. Examples include developing “a clearer framework for integrating wellbeing metrics into my community mental health and youth programs” , “dedicating a part of my project AfyaAI+ to mental health and digital wellbeing” , and “re-grounding what I am working on to more non-profit and impact oriented values.”
7 fellows reported “moderate change” involving shifts in their medium-term priorities, while 2 fellows indicated “major change” considering new or different career directions.
Participants reported significant value in terms of time investment, professional development, and community building. The program successfully delivered on its core objectives: providing high-quality facilitated discussions, curated learning materials, and a supportive peer community focused on global mental health.
Coming Up:
Global Mental Health Fellowship Reunion
We’re planning a gathering of all the fellows online**, offering 2 sessions so as many people can attend as possible. Feel free to attend one or both!
This is a great opportunity to share learnings and experience, celebrate, meet and network.
(**If you are a fellow and haven’t joined the Slack group for all of the fellows, please reach out to your facilitator)
There will be familiar faces in the reunion, all three facilitators: Mark, Gina, and Emily will be in attendance 🙂
Click the links below to add to your calendar!
Feb 10 at 11am EST
https://calendar.app.google/A4p32H4CsUGPLM7Q6
Feb 20 at 1pm EST
https://calendar.app.google/uXbuq1hMYSvVc1sC8
Effective Mental Health EMH Community Gathering
We will also have a next community gathering in March (date TBC in our next newsletter).
Last year we held many gatherings with many garnering 50+ participants, showcasing presentations from leading figures in effective mental health initiatives, funders, and founders.
Our Next Fellowship
The first has been a success, and we’re excited to keep running these. A lot of people that couldn’t attend the first are going to join and we expect people new to the community might want to participate. If you have already participated, or don’t plan to participate but want to support the initiative, we hope that you will kindly help us spread the word and invite people in your community that might benefit from this!
Our next semester of Global Mental Health Fellowship is slated to launch March 2026.
APPLY HERE!
https://airtable.com/appBQKLS1JHv0SR9z/pagzvnuUezhxzeLCN/form
In person AI and Therapy series – Georgetown University
On behalf of our EMH team, Gina has partnered with the AI Collective DC Chapter and the Therapists in Tech community to host a monthly, 6-session series starting in Feb 2026 to bring AI developers, licensed therapists, and consumers into the same room to navigate this landscape together. It will most likely take place at Georgetown University!
We are going to do live demos on how (not) to build chatbots, explore the limits of AI together with therapists.
Gina is always looking for new local speakers so if interested or have someone to recommend do reach out to anyone on our team!
So far topics already up for exploration:
- How AI mental health tools actually work and where they break
- AI relationships and attachment: can a chatbot help you heal? (featuring a sex therapist’s perspective)
- Privacy and safety: how much do you want your AI to forget?
- The economics of mental health: who is building, who’s profiting, who’s paying
- Data justice and bias: whose mental health counts when entire communities are left out of the training data
- **Topics you’d recommend?**
Artificial Intelligence Mental Health Initiative (AIMHI)
Over the past months, the AIMHI online group has held discussions mainly focusing on “the ethics of using conversational AI for therapeutic effects” and “testing AI effectiveness for underserved populations”. So far, we have published two EA Forum posts:
- Seeking Feedback: An Initiative on AI, Mental Health, and Alignment
- AI Mental Health Chatbots for Low-Resource Settings: A Prioritization Framework
Social enterprise to roll out AI-based mentalization training
Dawn, a regular attendee of AIMHI meetings, wants to launch a social enterprise to roll out AI-based mentalization training to the masses (startup one-pager here). She is now looking for cofounders, in particular ones based in the US and ideally with some experience in VC fundraising. Do contact her (email: dawn.drescher@claviger.net ) if you are interested!
Volunteering with the Effective Mental Health (EMH) Team
Our Effective Mental Health team is constantly growing and changing, as some have left for new and bright careers (Zoé we miss you!), and other team members are joining to help spearhead new initiatives. We are currently interviewing new incoming team members; if you are interested or you think people in your community may be interested in supporting us with our plans going forward, please share this link to the volunteers page on our website.
Thank you!
Thanks for reading and supporting the raising of effective practices and modalities in mental health globally, to improve wellbeing for all!
EMH Team
