Season’s greetings from The Social Issue – to mark the jollities, here’s a snapshot of some of the upbeat posts and pictures about people, projects and places featured over the last 12 months. This festive pick is by no means the best of the bunch – the inspiring stories below are included as they’re accompanied by some interestin and images and almost fit with a festive carol, if you allow for a little the poetic and numerical licence…
Very huge thanks to the Social Issue’s small band of regular and guest bloggers, all contributors, supporters, readers and everyone who’s got in touch with story ideas and feedback. See you in January.
On the first day of Christmas, the blogosphere brought to me:
A tiger in an art show Batik Tiger created by a student at specialist autism college, Beechwood
Two JCBs The Miller Road project, Banbury, where agencies are tackling youth housing and training. Pic: John Alexander
Three fab grans Hermi, 85: “I don’t really feel like an older woman.”
Four working teens From antisocial behaviour to force for social good; Buzz Bikes, Wales.
Five(ish) eco tips Eco hero Phil uses a “smart plug” to monitor domestic energy use
Jason Strelitz, co-founder, Decent Childhoods research project What does the word “poverty” mean to you? Consider this, from a mother involved with lone parent charity Gingerbread: “It doesn’t mean what you put on a plate…it also means, because learning doesn’t take place just in the classroom, it means holidays…and decent food…it means eating healthily – five a day.”
Concepts of poverty and rhetoric impact on improving childhood outcomes (pic: stock.xchng)
Our report questions why the target to halve child poverty by 2010 was missed – by a substantial margin. But we are also interested in why, despite Labour expending considerable political capital, investment and energy in “ending child poverty in a generation”, the issue did not resonate outside a narrow policy elite.
Poverty, it was argued in a 1981 article in the magazine New Society is a powerful call to action: if you see poverty then you must feel compelled to action. But while the argument has been invoked regularly by activists, there’s a problem with it as a basis for campaigning. Just because I see poverty, and tell you it exists, doesn’t mean you feel compelled to act – it depends on what you see as well.
Most people simply do not recognise the concept of “poverty” as the appropriate prism with which to view childhood disadvantage. It’s not that they don’t see disadvantage, inequalities, unfairness and absence of social justice; they just don’t call it poverty. The standard indicator of poverty – living in a household with income below 60% median is useful as a device to track progress, meaningful in analytic terms but hopeless in conveying a sense of vision or wider social purpose.
What’s more, most people who live in what sociologists or policymakers might call poverty would never describe themselves as poor. And, if there are 2-3m children in poverty in the UK, why are they and their parents so absent from these debates? There is a disconnect. Poverty is for many a stigmatising concept; announcing “I am at the bottom of the pile”.
Our public discourse plays to that stigma, drawing on longstanding images of the “underclass”and a culture that demeans those claiming benefits and living in social housing. This has been explored in Owen Jones’ Chavs: the demonization of the working class which talks about the change from working class “as salt of the earth to scum of the earth” and “a class to be escaped from rather than to be proud of”. There is a change in language and a clear hardening of attitudes towardspoverty . The recent British Social Attitudes survey revealed that people believe the root cause of child poverty is poor parenting.
So how can we communicate a vision of the kind of society we want for our children? “Combating poverty” may help to raise some outcry, but can we develop a more inclusive vision of change which those most effected may want to call their own?
Our aspiration for Decent Childhoods is that all children live in families with financial security; have meaningful opportunities; and are valued.
There’s little point denying that some of what is needed to achieve this requires investment, nor that given the economic times we live in, that this presents an immense challenge. But it’s not all about money. Changing the language around these issues whether as policy makers, professionals, the media and the public could make a profound difference. Whilst children’s sense of being valued comes first from their parents and families, we can do more to engender a positive inclusive language. Our report argues that three public “tests” might help further this cause. Are public services respectful of the agency and expertise of the people they are designed to serve? Can this agenda be an inclusive call to action? Does the language used by those with power and influence stigmatise those without?
Those concerned with demonization of those in poverty should take inspiration from how public language around race, homosexuality and disability has changed over the years. All are different from poverty and from each other as well, but what was acceptable 30 years ago, is no longer acceptable today.
In the way services operate perhaps some exemplars may come from unlikelier sources. Supermarkets wouldn’t dream of stigmatising their customers. They value their pound too much, and there is always another option down the road. If they don’t feel valued as a customer they can take their business elsewhere. Often in public services such an option doesn’t exist (nor should it – our argument here isn’t about choice), but engendering that same sense of volition must be an aim for services.
There are some successful examples putting this rhetoric into reality; although under threat in the current cuts, Sure Starts have been successful in their bottom up, parent led ethos and their universality. Another radical approach, the LIFE project, developed by social enterprise Participle and Swindon borough, for working with families in chronic crisis, puts people at the heart of the solution; they choose the professionals they work with, lead their process, the results have been very encouraging.
We think that rather than trying to sell poverty to a sceptical public, we need to be talking about a broader constituency, and a set of problems that affects both the many on the lowest incomes, and the many more struggling to keep their heads above water.
Decent childhoods means not only financial security, but better opportunities, and a sense that all children are valued. Surely these are things that everyone would want for their children?
Nadia Salam, solicitor, ReleaseSarah can tell you how quickly things fall apart. She has learning difficulties and mental health problems. She received benefits until a Department for Work and Pensions medical examiner assessed her as fit for work, without taking into account her mental health problems. Her benefits stopped as a result. She had difficulty understanding her letters and avoided opening post so she wasn’t aware of her rent arrears or that she was falling into debt.
When Sarah was threatened with eviction she decided to see a lawyer. By looking at the paperwork and making enquires on Sarah’s behalf the lawyer realised why Sarah had fallen into debt and that her home was at risk. She got advice in three areas so her benefits started again and affordable payments were negotiated on her behalf so her landlord agreed to take no further action.
Yet fast forward to 2013 and, under government plans due to come into force in just over a year’s time, Sarah will not get the same help. She will not even see a lawyer face to face, and will have to call an 0845 number just to get advice. The lawyer will not be able to carry out any preventative work or help with all the problems. Sarah probably will not even be able to afford the cost of the 0845 call. She won’t be able to turn up in person with all the paperwork, like she did before.
The government is putting a bill through parliament that would change the system for legal aid – when the state pays all or part of the legal costs for those who cannot afford them – so advice in certain areas of law would only initially be accessible through a mandatory telephone line. The current proposed areas are community care, debt, discrimination and special educational needs. All of these areas are complex, and often people who need this advice will be distressed, vulnerable and have difficulty understanding their paperwork or explaining their complex situation over the telephone.
There is currently a direct telephone advice line – however people still have the choice to access face to face advice. Under the proposals, this will no longer be the case. You won’t be able to choose the solicitor or visit them in person for initial advice in certain areas of law. This will all be done over the telephone, where someone who may not even be legally trained will decide whether you need legal advice and are eligible.
The reforms come just as councils are also cutting the services they provide. Vulnerable adults will be most at risk as it will be harder to get legal advice to challenge standards of community care or an assessment that they do not qualify.
On 21st November 2011 the Bill was debated in the House of Lords for almost eight hours. It is about to pass onto the committee stage, where peers will examine it line by line. There have been serious concerns from peers about a mandatory telephone line. Baroness Grey-Thompson highlighted this during the recent debate: “The cases of disabled people are complex… If a disabled person has struggled to put their case forward in an assessment process, a phone call will not make it easier”.
This is only one of the major changes being proposed. Other proposals would remove many areas of law from the scope of legal aid, so it will no longer be available for many parts of family and immigration law, and no problems dealing with employment, clinical negligence, or welfare benefits.
All of these proposals if introduced will affect many vulnerable and disadvantaged groups in our society, particularly the disabled. The government’s own figures reveal that 58% of people who lose legal aid for benefits issues will be ill or disabled. However despite this, the government is still adamant that the bill should go ahead as initially drafted.
The disability charity Scope points out that the Government has not recognised that legal aid is an essential element for the success of wider welfare reforms, helping people get the right decisions to access support they need to help them into work. With the Government completely overhauling the entire benefits system even more people will find themselves struggling like Sarah. More people will need advice, and it is more likely that errors will be made as DWP staff get to grips with the new rules. However unlike Sarah they will not be able to get the legal advice they so desperately need to prevent themselves from fighting fire.
It is important that we continue to support the campaign for free legal advice to ensure we will always have the law to protect those that need it the most and have access to justice. Go to Save Legal Aid, Justice for All and Sound off for Justice (previously featured in this post on the Social Issue) for ways you can get involved.
* Scope is collecting stories from disabled people who used legal aid to get the right benefits, contact cristina.sarb@scope.org.uk
Lol Butterfield, mental health campaignerOver 30 years ago as a young man I first set foot in a psychiatric hospital. It was an old Victorian “asylum” in the rolling countryside of Bedfordshire. I had travelled to the south of England from my native north east to find work, and here I found myself.
I wandered down the endless dimly lit corridors and found myself surrounded by staring, pain-etched faces with wild curious eyes. It felt like I had stumbled onto the set of the film One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. There was a sense of unreality to it all, but also of mystique. It was so stereotypical of all I had previously read in books and seen on television about asylums – those places others and never ourselves, of course, will be sent to for being “mad”.
Next year, it will be 50 years since the first steps towards community care for mental health (see this useful mental health timeline on the Mind website) this “anniversary” has made me revisit my early experiences as a mental health care professional and look afresh at the history of mental health care.
After 1962’s Hospital plan for England and Wales, large psychiatric hospitals closed and local authorities developed community services. That was, of course, the theory – not all local areas had adequate community services as we know, so there were still long-stay patients in hospitals up and down the country.
So it was more than three decades ago in that psychiatric hospital that my understanding and awareness of mental illness grew. I came to realise that the staring faces and wild eyes were ordinary people who had found themselves in extraordinary circumstances. They had been incarcerated many years before.
As a consequence of the debilitating illnesses they had, such as schizophrenia, and the horrendous medication side effects, they were displaying mannerisms that drew unwanted attention. Mannerisms that perpetuated the stigmatising process further. They had lost their self confidence, their motivation, and probably more importantly their daily living skills to function independently outside of the hospital confines. They had become institutionalised. The hospital was their home and they would eventually die there. Within the walls of the hospital the behaviour became normalised, the wandering up and down corridors, the staring at strangers and the shuffling gait. Outside in the local town it was polarised.
In the early 1990s many of the old asylums were closed. They had become anachronistic. More people were now being rehabilitated with the government’s proposal for care in the community, a radical shift in policy and approach essentially moving most of the care emphasis from the hospitals into the communities. People were discharged from the hospitals back into their communities with follow up planned support and care (in most cases).
Sadly some slipped through the safety net of care. And in the years that followed the medication improved and the stigmatising side effects became less. There was an increased acknowledgement of the importance of social inclusion, of recovery from illness, and of empowerment – treating people as individuals with informed choice and promoting equality.
Flashforward to 2011 and yet we still have stigma. We still have misunderstanding and we still have inequality in many sections of society for those 1 in 4 of the population who experience mental illhealth.
What is my long term vision of stigma and discrimination and where we will be in the next 50 years? I believe that stigma will have been eradicated completely following the success of campaigns such as Time To Change. I hope for a realisation that both our physical and mental wellbeing work in correlation and, as such, cannot and must not be split. I believe the strength and vision of those who have fought so hard will be acknowledged one day and in schools across the country their stories will be lesson material. Leading figures in the anti-stigma movement will be seen more positively as vehicles for social change. Mental health stigma will be seen in the same unacceptable light as racism and homophobia.
I have campaigned for many years, most of my adult life even, and no doubt ruffled a few feathers in the process. But I would rather stand up and be counted for saying something I passionately believe in than silently watch and do nothing. This I cannot do alone and I am always motivated by the support I get from others, more so from the victims of stigma and discrimination themselves.
As Philip Larkin wrote in The Mower, “We should be kind while there is still time”. In the case of mental health and tackling stigma and discrimination this kindness will hopefully continue through campaigning. We have come a long way, but we are not there yet.
Last year Ian Leech, who lost his student daughter to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, successfully campaigned for financial support for students whose treatment for illnesses such as cancer forced them to interrupt their studies. As a result of his work, young people no longer have to use student loans for support in such situations. In this guest post, he describes what happened – and why his campaign is far from over.
By Ian Leech
In 2007, having been diagnosed at the age of 20 with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, my daughter Melissa decided to suspend her university studies for a year to recover from this life changing illness and concentrate on getting well. It was a huge decision for Mel; she loved university and embraced all that university life had to offer (see this earlier post for Mel’s story).
The original prognosis was positive. Six rounds of chemotherapy three weeks apart, maybe some radiotherapy and it would, in the words of the consultant, just be a bad memory. It doesn’t take a mathematician to work out that treatment would last probably around 20 weeks. In that time Mel would endure extreme tiredness, confusion, have breathing difficulties, mouth ulcers and all that on top of the psychological aspect of being told that at 20 years of age, you have cancer.
Ian Leech and his daughter Mel
Having made the decision to suspend her studies, she applied for financial support. She hadn’t drawn on her student loan and had no savings. The response from the government was that she should either suspend her studies or use her student loan.
I wrote to my MP explaining the psychological effects of her having to abandon her studies and explained that I was under the impression a student loan was to support study and not act as a health insurance.
So began a battle with first, the Labour government and latterly the Conservatives to bring about a change in the law. It was nearly six months before Melissa received any financial support. Three months later she sadly passed away. I wanted to ensure that any student suspending their studies to recover from long term illness would receive immediate financial support.
As more emails arrived from parents and students relating similar stories, I continued the fight after Mel’s death. Eventually, the government listened and on November 1st 2010 the deeming rule was changed. Students were no longer assumed to have drawn on their student loan when suspending their studies. Therefore they could now apply for Employment Support Allowance (ESA). Victory for the little man!
As usual though, the government officials making the decisions had not thought the change through and they failed to remove the long-standing clause that to qualify for ESA, a student must be in receipt of Disability Living Allowance. This meant that the majority of students, when suspending their studies to recover from a long term illness still would not receive any financial support.
It is incredible that in this day and age our government treat people in this way. Mel never wanted hundreds of pounds, just a few quid to enable her to buy a bar of chocolate or other every day items without having to ask mum and dad. She wanted just enough to give her a bit of self-respect during a horrible time.
In my last letter to the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) I asked Sir Iain Duncan Smith how a student in Melissa’s position was supposed to live. The answer I received from the DWP was that people in Melissa’s situation are a minority and therefore they would do nothing more.
I wrote to David Cameron back in 2007 when he was in opposition. His reply, which I still have, stated that “the Conservative Party are committed to helping the most vulnerable in society”. How times change! Power really does change people!
My battle with the government continues. There are other avenues I am exploring to resolve this. Camping outside St. Paul’s Cathedral isn’t one of them, well, not yet! I still receive emails from parents and students who are experiencing similar problems. In order to receive DLA, you have to have had the condition for three months and it needs to be ongoing for a further six months.
One lady told me how her 20-year-old daughter, diagnosed with cancer, was told she wouldn’t receive DLA because her chemotherapy finished in four months and therefore her condition didn’t meet the six month criteria required for receiving it. It is unbelievable that those making decisions on financial support for seriously ill people think that a cancer patient’s illness ends when the last drop of chemotherapy goes through the veins.
The important matter in all of this is that when a student finds themselves in the position that Melissa did and decides to suspend their studies, they have access to financial support and they don’t have to wait nearly six months for financial support.
I recently received a letter from a lady who had been trying for nearly 12 months to get support for her daughter. Sadly, earlier this year the family were told her condition was incurable. The financial support quite rightly came flooding in, but as she said, “it’s a shame you have to be dying to get the help you needed in the beginning”.
I am all for getting rid of the cheats and scroungers that play the system, but whilst doing that, the government must not lose sight of why the welfare system was originally put in place, to look after those in need, or as David Cameron put it whilst leader of the opposition, in a letter to me in 2009, “to help the most vulnerable in society”
The fight goes on.
* You can read more about Ian’s work and campaigning on his website Mad4Mel. For information about lymphoma visit the Lymphoma Association website.
William Wright left his Somerset school with a handful of GCSEs. Confused about what to do after school, he felt his teachers had “given up” on him. Wright found temporary work as a plasterer but lacked the qualifications for a permanent job. Unemployed and uncertain, he fell into a vicious circle; being jobless destroyed his confidence and made him feel depressed, which made it difficult to find work. Now 26, he says: “I felt like a failure. Unemployment knocked my self-esteem and made me feel like I wasn’t good enough at anything.”
One million 16- to 24-year-olds in the UK are not in education, employment or training, just as William was. Read more here in my piece from the Guardian on Saturday.
And in the same youth supplement this piece by Kate Murray, who also blogs on this site, explores how to restore young people’s faith and involvement in politics with comments from MPs – including children’s minister, Tim Loughton – youth workers and community activists.
Chances are you’ve never heard of the world’s most common inherited learning disability – it was news to me until my sister was diagnosed with it several years ago.
Today is Fragile X Awareness Day in 16 European countries including the UK. The syndrome affects least one in 4,000 girls or women and one in 6,000 boys or men, as my family discovered in 2003 when my sister was diagnosed at 14.
Late diagnosis of Fragile X, as in my sister’s case, is sadly all too common – but it’s still better than the condition remaining undiagnosed (again, common due to it being misdiagnosed as autism or misunderstood by many professionals).
Recognised just 30 years ago, it is diagnosed by a blood test revealing the abnormal “fragile” site on the X chromosome. Symptoms include social, language and emotional problems, mild to severe learning disabilities, and autism-like behaviour.
Professor Jeremy Turk, who advises the support charity the Fragile X Society on the psychiatric and psychological aspects of the syndrome, is calling for people diagnosed as autistic who also show signs of developmental delay to be tested for Fragile X. “The relatively low levels of diagnosis of Fragile X Syndrome is a matter of extreme concern as it prevents families from receiving the correct support, understanding their condition and restricts their ability to make informed decisions about their lives,” says Turk. “A lack of awareness of Fragile X Syndrome amongst health professionals, and society in general, contributes to this low level of diagnosis and the failure to understand the links with, and important differences from, autism.”
As with any complex need, the symptoms of Fragile X vary hugely, making a single template of care impossible (even if the current drive towards person-centred care would allow it) and “the system” a minefield for parents and families. With children, as we found in my sister’s case, the multi-agency support can include the health visitor, GP, paediatrician, school special educational needs coordinator, social worker, care manager, speech and language therapist, occupational therapist and physiotherapist. That’s if you’re lucky, have the time, energy and the wherewithal to negotiate the system.
And, as is par for the course in social care, just when you think you’ve secured the right tailor-made support, it’s dismantled and you have to start all over again once your child moves from children’s to adult services. All too often the “transition” – a catch-all term that makes it sound like an elegant, seamless move, oh the irony – to adult care is as relentlessly bumpy as that first roller coaster of diagnosis and the initial securing of provision.
I explained my family’s experience in a Guardian piece several years ago, from the furtive glances from strangers at her “inappropriate” behaviour to the fact that family excursions would involve packing a few small towels, just in case Raana got so stressed that she vomited. Since then have described my sister’s Raana’s path to the right care and support on this blog. We have been fortunate; our experience has always been more of a series of battles than full-blown crises, but I know others are not so lucky.
In 2006 Alison Davies jumped from the Humber Bridge with her 12-year-old son, Ryan, who had fragile X. She had complained that Ryan was not receiving his entitlement of respite care, although this was investigated and found not to be the case. The contrast between the chink of optimism my family and I had just started seeing in my sister’s case, with her tentative moves towards independence and finding her own voice, and the total, utter despair and isolation that Alison Davies must have felt was horribly stark.
After that incident on the Humber Bridge, Labour MP Betty Williams went on to table an early day motion in Parliament, criticising the insufficient support for families of children with Fragile X and autistic spectrum disorders that pushes many to “crisis point”. Just recently I read an extremely moving piece by a mother who admitted that “as a parent you feel guilty, and then you feel alone”.
Half a dozen years after Williams tabled her motion, I wonder how much has really changed for families affected by Fragile X, while remaining hopeful about the impact of today’s awareness day.
* read about Fragile X on twitter using the hashtag #fragilexday
The painting here, depicting the torment of a lost past and an unknown future, is among the intriguing works in a new exhibition opening in London today which focuses on mental health. The arts event by charity CoolTan Arts, an organistion run for and by people with experience of mental health issues that I’ve blogged about before, includes collage, painting, sculpture to batik and drawing.
William Ball, the artist behind the piece above, In a Room, says his use of black and yellow reflects concepts of death and danger. Another of Ball’s pieces, Through a Window, meanwhile, represents the optimism and growth he found at CoolTan; it is no coincidence that the artist also cares for the garden at the arts charity.
Ball has been a CoolTan regular since 2003 after a mental health crisis sparked by his mother’s death a few years previously, redundancy and relationship breakdown. “My future looked very bleak, at 51-years-old my life seemed as if it was over.” Almost sectioned and prescribed “heavy medication”, Ball was introduced to CoolTan Arts by a friend: “The people were warm and supportive. I soon visited regularly and enjoyed being part of it.”
The artist’s story is testament to the charity’s work which aims to change perceptions of mental ill health. The organisation, based in Southwark, south London, believes that mental wellbeing is enhanced by creativity.
Here are a few of the other pieces on show until November 30th at Carnegie Library in Herne Hill, south London.
Geometric Patterns, Marjorie McLeanView from the Southbank of Tower Bridge, Aaron PilgrimUntitled, Graham NewtonThrough a Window, William Ball
The free exhibition opens today at a Library, 188 Herne Hill Road, SE24 0AG, and runs until November 30. For information call 0207 701 2696 or email: suzie@cooltanarts.org.uk
When I asked my kids to tell me how they felt about visiting their grandma, who has dementia, in her care home, they were honest. “It can be a bit spooky because there are a lot of people there who can’t remember things,” said my eight-year-old. “It’s sad sometimes when we see her, especially when she says she thinks you’re her sister. I don’t really like hearing that. I remember when she was in her own house and she could make herself a cup of tea.”
Hard as it was to hear those words, I can’t say I find my daughter’s reaction surprising. I often find a visit to my mum “spooky” too. Although her care home is very good, it’s not somewhere I’d ever wanted her to be. It’s tough seeing her now, so different from the active person she once was, and the behaviour of people with dementia can be disconcerting and at times downright distressing. I initially found the resident who repeatedly cries out: “I feel terrible” very upsetting – and I’m supposed to be the adult.
The children and I have talked about how my mother used to be, why she gets confused now and why it’s so important that we spend the time that we do with her. My five-year-old summed it up well: “If we didn’t go, she’d be upset and she’s your mum.” But although we have often talked about dementia, and how it makes them feel, I’ve sometimes felt I was struggling to explain what was going on.
That’s why I was so impressed to find The Milk’s In The Oven, a booklet published by the Mental Health Foundation, to help children understand a bit more about dementia. Simply written, with practical exercises to encourage children to think about what it might be like to lose their memory, it’s an effective tool both for the classroom and for families affected by dementia.
Toby Williamson, head of development and later life at the Mental Health Foundation, explains that the booklet, originally published more than a decade ago but updated this autumn, is designed to help address some of the stigma surrounding dementia. “What we are trying to do is help young people understand what dementia is and how it affects the person,” he says. “It addresses the fears children might experience and the feelings they might have of being embarrassed or angry. What it is saying is actually you might well have those feelings, it’s understandable and you can talk about it. We want to reduce the fear of going to visit people with dementia. Social relationships are incredibly important for people with dementia – even in the final stages, a bit of contact, just holding hands, can mean so much.”
As Williamson points out, most families in the UK will, at some stage, have a relative or friend with dementia. It’s important, he stresses, that people know more about the disease, both so that they can support the person affected and so that they can encourage relatives to get an early diagnosis, often so valuable in terms of treatment and preparing for what’s ahead. And even for those children who don’t know anyone with dementia, there’s huge value in learning more about it.
Schools are increasingly teaming up with health professionals to build the links which can foster greater understanding. One impressive project is in Doncaster, where pupils from three schools now visit day centres across the town, taking part in activities like baking, sewing, singing and playing dominoes with people with dementia.
Mary Beardsley, the team manager for the local NHS trust’s Doncaster Community Memory Therapy Service says, the youngsters involved, who are aged between nine and 11, usually don’t have any personal experience of dementia. But thanks to the project they have built strong relationships with the service users, gaining a real respect for them as individuals. For the older people too, it’s been an overwhelmingly positive experience.
“Our patients gain so much confidence – it puts them in a position of power being able to teach the children something,” says Beardsley. “When you get dementia, you lose your confidence and you don’t think you are good enough. Seeing the interaction between children and patients is fantastic. The children grow to love them and the patients can’t wait for them to come.”
That recipe for a better understanding of dementia through building new relationships is one I can see developing in my own children. As they talk with some of the residents at my mum’s home, I hope they are seeing that older people with dementia need our support and respect. It’s a lesson that, as the numbers with dementia rise, more of the younger generation will need to learn.
This evening the charity YoungMinds hosts its annual debate in London on the controversial topic of whether our target driven schools system is damaging children’s wellbeing. The charity aims to improve the mental health and emotional well-being of children and young people.
The discussion will be chaired by the BBC’s Home Editor, Mark Easton with panellists including Fiona Millar, journalist and education campaigner, Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the Royal Society of Arts, Karen Robinson, head of education and equality at the National Union of Teachers, Ian Morris, Head of Wellbeing at Wellington College and Adele Eastman, senior policy specialist at the Centre for Social Justice.
After what promises to be a controversial debate, the event will conclude with a short film made by young people who are part of the Very Important Kids (VIK) participation group – of which I am a member – on this subject and the stigma faced by young people with mental health difficulties.
A still from tonight's VIK film about schooling and mental health. Pic: VIK
The film to be shown tells the story of a schoolgirl called Jessie who, though having no diagnosed mental illness is experiencing a great deal of emotional distress and finding it increasingly difficult to cope with the amount of stress she is under, especially with exams looming and pressure from school and family to perform well. Every year around exam time we hear of the stress young people are being placed under to achieve top grades, sometimes to the detriment of their mental health. Our film hopes to shine a light on this issue, promote debate and emphasise the importance of good emotional wellbeing to prevent future mental health difficulties.
A film made by youth mental health campaigners considers if targets damage pupil's wellbeing?Pic: VIK
Acted, directed and produced by members of the VIK group we aim to produce a trilogy of films centred on the theme of young people’s mental health, ranging from emotional problems to more severe forms of mental illness. The message we endeavour to get across is that every one of us is susceptible to mental health difficulties; we all exist on a continuum from happiness, to sadness, to an inability to cope and then mental illness.
Mental health is not simply an affliction of the few but something one in four of us can expect to experience in our lifetime. Because of this understanding how to take care of your emotional wellbeing and building resilience from a young age is vital and another theme which will be interweaved through the trilogy.
Having mental health difficulties from a young age can bring with it its own stigma. Young people can feel stigmatised against in society anyway, for a whole host of reasons and when you add on to that the stigma of having a mental health problem it can be really difficult to trust anyone enough to talk to them about what you are experiencing, or even find someone willing to listen and empathise.
All the young people involved in making this film have experience of mental health difficulties and the desire to challenge old ideas about mental health is something we feel passionately about. Demystifying what it’s like to be a young person with mental health difficulties can go a long way to tackling stigma and educating future generations that mental health isn’t just about mental illness and definitely not something to be afraid of.
* This evening we will also celebrate the launch of a new project, YoungMinds in Schools, to improve the emotional wellbeing of children and young people in school. The programme aims to improve outcomes for children and young people with behavioural, emotional and social difficulties by bringing together professionals, parents, children and young people to create a comprehensive suite of learning resources.
The project seeks to maximise the potential to positively influence the emotional wellbeing and mental health of the whole school community, adults and children, as well as addressing the specific needs of pupils identified as having behavioural, emotional and social difficulties (BESDs).
The programme will work collaboratively with clusters of primary and secondary schools and the services that link to those schools, providing training and consultancy support to schools and gathering the views of professionals, parents and pupils to shape innovative resources. YoungMinds has received two years funding from the Department for Education (DfE) through its Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) programme for the YoungMinds in Schools project.
