SG Mental Health Matters is a community of mental health advocates and researchers, and in 2021 they ran the #AreWeOkay poll to better understand the issues of access, affordability, and quality of mental healthcare in Singapore. With two of its members today - former nominated member of parliament Anthea Ong and postdoctoral researcher Dr. Rayner Tan - we learn more about the community’s work, the poll’s findings, and their proposal for a Mental Wellbeing and Sustainable Development Office in Singapore.

Anthea (Mental health: Awareness, acceptance, and action and “Are we listening?”: Coalescing around downstream and upstream mental health action) and Rayner (On the researcher’s privileged position, community partnerships, data and research advocacy) were previously on the podcast. A previous feature on mental health at the workplace is also very relevant to our conversation.

(Content and trigger warning: This episode contains references to suicide.)

My conversation with Anthea and Rayner is part of our joint 2021 focus on researchers as well as on civil society groups, efforts, and issues in Singapore (https://socialservice.sg/podcast/). The feature photo is by Stefan Spassov on Unsplash.