Last week we held the first of four web and phone based seminars on overcoming depression. It also differed from other courses on this topic as it was designed with both the depression sufferer and their caregiver in mind.

We had over 100 people participating from all over Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the USA which I was really very pleased with.

What really really works in overcoming depression

It was interesting running a session on this over the web as when you put depression into Google you get over 87,700,000 page impressions. Surely everyone can access anything they want to know. Unfortunately that is just the problem. Most people are so time poor and don’t know just where to start.

I also found this to be an issue when I was in the depths of my depression and just had a hunch that a session that covered 7 evidence based strategies shown to help beat depression would be valuable to some people.

From my perspective it was a little strange presenting to over 100 people without being able to see their response so I was very keen to do some market research after the event.

The information presented in the seminar was helpful

I was very pleased that 70% Strongly Agree and 30% Agreed with this statement.

There were suggestions made during the seminar that I could action this week.

Strongly Agree 60% Agree 40%

I was very pleased with this also as I truly believe that action is one of the main enemies of depression.

I found the telephone and web simulcast concept convenient

Strongly Agree 70% Agree 30%

It could be improved by:

Having more time for questions

Strongly agree 49% Agree 42%

One of the issues when people listened via the web is that they could not ask verbal questions. This was also compounded by me trying to cover too much in the first session. The technology does allow for written questions to be conveyed and based on the feedback, I have decided to cover the formal presentation in the first hour and then have 20 minutes of answering questions at the end.

All in all I was very pleased with this first attempt. Of course I will be very keen to get additional feedback after the end of the next 3 seminars but I am very hopeful that it will be a great medium for 2009 and beyond.

The next 3 sessions will cover:

Finding the right mental health professionals

Building a support network

Helping to prevent a crisis and sustaining the care

If anyone has any questions or comments regarding these seminars please respond to this blog or email me at graeme@IamBackFromTheBrink.com

Kind Regards

Graeme

Tags: beating depression, depression carer, depression phone and web seminar, depression sufferer, depression treatments, overcoming depression