Category Archives: Wellbeing

Health, Mental health, Uncategorized, Wellbeing, Young people

Self-harm: the power of talking face to face

Self-harm has always been a taboo subject and in my many years of mental health nursing probably provided more challenges than anything else for me.

It touches at the very core of who we are and how we deal with stress. Our mental strength, or resilience to cope when under pressure, will prevail in many cases but not all.

Recently, new research by the charity YoungMinds suggested that many doctors do not know how to support young people who self-harm. And today comes the news that mental health patients are to be given the right to chose their consultant. As reported today, this will help end what can be a “like it or lump it” service – unlike patients with physical health issues, mental health patients can’t currently chose which psychiatrist they see.

Back to primary care; self-harm is still very much misunderstood by many, and the wider general public. As a mental health nurse, I confess at times to having felt at a loss myself as to how to respond to repeated self harm behaviours. You question your own approach if the problem remains despite intense nursing intervention.

But given that 10 per cent of 15 to 16 year olds are thought to have self-harmed, usually by cutting themselves, if GPs are offering a lacklustre response to the issue (not referring for counselling or for more specific mental health support), this is woefully inadequate.

The mental health charity Mind, suggests that if your GP doesn’t help, you contact the Patient Advice and Liaison Services – and you have a right to change your GP. Mind has some useful practical information on where to get help.

I have worked with some excellent professionals. However, I have also seen others who are in a privileged position to help but who try to look the other way. Or dismiss this as attention seeking behaviour.

In a profession known for its primary focus on the treatment of physical diseases, being presented with a self-harming patient provides an emotional litmus test for many GPs. Why do they get this so wrong sometimes?

Although I don’t want to generalize, I believe that some view this behaviour with frustration and a sense of hopelessness. By this I mean some medical professionals might not feel confident of their own training or understanding to be in a position to deal with things effectively.

Some GPs are too dismissive or refer to mental health services in the knowledge that more specialised knowledge will be available to plan appropriate treatment. Or they automatically reach for the prescription pad to prescribe medication without really asking themselves if a psychological approach would be the more helpful first option.

And yet all too often, just a listening ear will help, to allow the person to “offload” within the surgery. This is where the therapeutic relationship between the GP and patient is pivotal to treatment and recovery.

The power of talking openly about concerns face to face cannot be underestimated. A prescription for anti-depressants may be helpful in the long term but we should not rule out even a basic “talking and listening” opportunity as a first option (given GP’s have to stick to set consultation slots, I can see why this might seem an impossible idea – but an approach that encourages people to talk is the right one).

If a person with low self esteem tells the GP they are a “bad person” or “unloved”, the GP can use a simple cognitive behavioural approach of questioning the evidence to support this there and then, of which there is usually very little. And stress to the person that a thought is just a thought, not a fact. Simple but effective initial intervention to encourage someone to question their own negative thought processes.

So what to do?

Going back to my opening thoughts, while professionally I’ve found self-harming behavior extremely challenging, one thing I’ve never doubted is my empathy to try to look beyond the physical act of self harm to try to identify its underlining cause.

A behaviour as challenging as self-harm can distract you from seeing the person behind the behavior; what is the emotional conflict driving this kind of behaviour. People can change self-harming behaviours. Being positive and maintaining hope is the starting point of any intervention – and that goes for the professional as well as the individual.

Mental health, Older people, Social care, Uncategorized, Wellbeing

Why I always had time for George: older people and mental health

I’m walking across the grounds of the psychiatric hospital on a very wet winter evening and a patient, let’s call him George, steps out from behind a bush to talk to me. He needs to tell me something that he feels is important and can’t wait.

We both stand for quite a while talking (he’s a staunch socialist and wants to talk politics) and both get soaked to the skin. I think to myself that it’s more respectful to hear what he wants to say then hurry on and seek shelter. As we eventually walk back to the ward together, he is calmer, seemingly content to have got his feelings off his chest.

This scene took place more than 20 years ago (I mention it in my book, Sticks and Stones) but I believe now what I thought then, that my exchange with George is what real empathy is all about. It’s what being non-judgmental is about, what being human is about, what being a nurse is about.

I have nursed enough people during my time as a mental health nurse to understand that life is a bit of a lottery. I have seen the elderly lose their dignity in nursing homes and in hospitals. This is not always through dementia. This could be depression or psychosis, or other debilitating illnesses depriving them of their confidence, self worth, and esteem.

But as the recent figures about suicide rates rising among the elderly show, mental health issues may be overlooked in older people as society mistakenly presumes dementia is the only condition older people experience. Another assumption is that depression is a normal part of ageing, because the elderly have more of a sense of their own mortality.

I hope that whatever befalls me in my old age I am shown the same respect and compassion as I believe I have shown others. There’s often a failure of respect not just because of deliberate neglect or a lack of compassion, but through ignorance – through not treating people as individuals or not meeting their emotional needs.

So how do we prevent this? Essentially it is around searching for the person behind the illness and stepping back for a second and thinking “how would I like to be treated if this was me?” or “would I like to be looked after in this environment?”

Of course I’m not arguing against the completion of care plans, but I do worry that the increasing onus on form-filling and box-ticking can deny care staff more time to spend with those they support. A care professional might be spending hours on admin, or typing up a care plan – but how does the person in their care know this is part of them being cared for? They’d rather have our face-to-face time I’m sure.

Person-centred care, as the name suggests, is meant to put the client at the heart of the care planning process. This care is collaborative and negotiated with the client (theoretically). However, often when someone is acutely psychotic and lacks all insight, nurses then become the advocate and the care must be planned depending on what is required to get the person well again. As for personalisation and personal budgets, the take up is sadly not as high as it should be; people worry about risk management and general funding pressures that can put people off.

Compared to when I was in a clinical setting, today’s care world involves a far more litigation and risk-averse culture which takes staff away from the client. At the time I knew George, I could spend longer in one to one sessions with clients, so could my colleagues, but more often than not, today’s staff are only allocated a set amount of time each shift to spend in one to one, face to face therapeutic sessions on the wards.

Staff cutbacks on the wards and in the community will also reduce the time staff can spend with clients in face to face interventions. However staff should still show empathy and be non judgmental in all approaches, because this is the essence of their roles.

Clearly, organisations promoting older people’s issues have a role to play in raising awareness and educating. We stigmatise the elderly as much as we stigmatise the young people, so we need more positive promotion of what the elderly can offer society. Countries like China and Japan, for example, revere the elderly and yet in this country I think some people view them as an afterthought, a burden.

The hospital where I met George has long since been converted into a block of expensive flats while the man himself, already in his 80s when we had that long rainy chat, will have passed away many years ago. But the memory of that evening stays with me as a reminder of the underlying principle of care as I see it; listening to, respecting and having the individual – not “the system” – as your main focus.

Health, Private sector, Sustainability, Third sector, Wellbeing

Making social impact integral to business

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When women in Haiti added fruit flavouring to purified water and sold it to their peers, an impromptu community business was born. While the main aim was a health-related one – the women used purifying sachets distributed after the 2010 earthquake to clean the water – the unforeseen knock-on effect involved women educating their peers about not drinking contaminated water and running their own mini-enterprise. Read the rest of my piece on the Guardian Sustainable Business network.

Bullying, Health, Mental health, Wellbeing, Young people

How I fell back in love with learning

The recent Mental Health Awareness Week made me reflect on my experience of mental health problems and how studying is helping me – hopefully – recover.

Recovery from a mental health problem is rarely easy and, in my opinion, highly subjective. Medication may form part of a person’s recovery but those little green and white capsules aren’t the magic “happy pills” you may have envisaged and sometimes the first step is simply trying to access the right help and support to manage your symptoms.

While I’m dubious as to whether I’ll ever fully recover in the medical sense – complete absence of symptoms – by understanding myself and my condition better and am slowly learning what may help alleviate the impact depression and anxiety has on my life.

Last year I began studying with the Open University (OU), a short science course on particle physics which did not require me to leave the house or interact with anybody face to face; my idea of heaven. One of my issues is severe anxiety triggered by social situations, when I’m at my worst I am unable to leave the house for fear of seeing another human being and becoming paranoid, agitated and having to run away.

I’m 23 now and left school with five GCSEs at the age of 16, since then I’ve been in and out of college and university, believing if I was strong enough I could “get over” my mental health problems and fit in with my peers. Unfortunately being in a classroom inevitably triggered my anxiety due in part to bullying in high school which I’ve struggled to recover from.

I was always reluctant to study with the Open University despite encouragement from my mum, a fellow OU student. Part of me felt I was somehow “giving up” by not facing my issues head on and forcing myself to be around people in an educational setting. But, fed up of being a drop-out and realising I’d always preferred the autodidact way of learning I signed up and haven’t looked back since. Studying with the OU allows me to continue my education despite my problems and has helped me fall back in love with learning again, something I doubted would ever happen and believing the opportunity to gain a degree and have a career was something other people had, not some anxious wreck terrified of the world.

Following the completion of some short science courses to ease me back in to studying again I’m now aiming for a degree in physics. It’s not always being easy, concentrating on differential equations for hours on end when you’re depressed and crying your eyes out can be horrific but the university has services on offer for students with disabilities which include the Disabled Students Allowance (to pay for any additional costs relating to your disability), flexibility with assignment deadlines and individual support during examinations. I have asked for extensions for a couple of assignments due to struggling to motivate myself because of my depression.

The study is also part-time which makes things less stressful and means I can study alongside receiving treatment for my mental health. The number of hours I study a day or week varies quite a bit, but on average, around two hours a day are dedicated purely to study. I’ve found when my assignments are due I become a bit obsessive with the studying and can spend days or nights on end studying.

Some people find distance learning isolating and admittedly, sometimes it’d be great to sit down and have a chat with fellow students; there are plenty of opportunities to chat online via the forums, Facebook and Twitter, which suits me.

I have used the forums available on the OU website which is part of it “virtual campus”. I have also used one set up by students on Facebook where I just chatted about the course rather than anything mental health related; it helped remind me I wasn’t on my own.

For some courses there are face-to-face or online tutorials every few months where you get to communicate with your tutor, who is always available by email and telephone. I’ve been too anxious to go to face-to-face tutorials which is why I’m so glad online ones were provided.

Studying as a way of managing a mental health problem may not be for everyone but it has managed to keep me focused and helped me realise my life doesn’t have to be defined by being unwell and a mental health service user. Recovery may be long and arduous but I’m convinced studying – and I hope to finish the degree in another four years – will be an integral part of keeping me mentally healthy.

* Carrie is involved in the charity Young Minds’ VIK (Very Important Kids) project which campaigns on youth mental health. You can follow Carrie and Vik on Twitter @vikproject

Health, Learning disability, media & communication, Music & arts, Social exclusion, Third sector, Uncategorized, Wellbeing, Young people

Face the facts, not the film fiction

It’s an uphill struggle for those with so-called invisible difficulties (people with conditions on the autistic spectrum, for example,) to achieve mainstream representation or indeed capture the attention of broadcasters, newspaper editors, politicians and the public.

So imagine the challenge for those with more visible differences.

If you see facial disfigurement in movies, its usually a handy hint just in case you have trouble figuring out the baddie (think Nightmare on Elm Street’s Freddie Kreuger and just about every Bond villain). Trying to see if I could disprove this theory, I randomly remembered Liam Neeson in Darkman – scarred, with a grudge, ultimately fighting for justice – but then looked up the tagline” “hideously scarred and mentally unstable scientist seeks revenge against the crooks who made him like that”. Ouch.

Movie memo to kids (they might not know Freddie Kreuger but you can be sure they know Batman’s The Joker or Harry Potter’s Voldemort): look bad on the outside, and you’re bad inside.

Today, Changing Faces, the charity for people and families whose lives are affected by appearance-altering conditions, marks or scars, launches a nationwide film campaign. Please watch it, it’s powerful, elegantly produced and only a minute long.

You might already have spotted the charity’s poster campaign not so long ago which aimed to stop people in their tracks long enough to make them think (instead of simply staring). Today’s Face Equality on Film campaign, it is hoped, will go some way towards tackling the prejudice and crass assumptions experienced by people with facial disfigurement.

The campaign calls for balanced portrayals of people with disfigurements on screen and the film, which will be shown in 750 Odeon cinemas, invites audiences to challenge their assumptions about Leo Gormley, a man with burn scars. It also stars Downton Abbey actor Michelle Dockery.

As a teenager in the ’80s, my first foray into the mind-boggling world of skincare and “beauty” products involved a desperate desire to cover barely perceptible blemishes, inspired by the seemingly zit-free stars on my Smash Hits front cover. But since, then the concept of “beauty” has become even more extreme, and digital wizardry can clear imperfections in the blink of a heavily-made-up eye.

I’m conscious that my seven-year-old daughter, for example, is growing up in a media environment dominated by images of identikit, airbrushed, photoshopped lovelies projecting an unobtainable and flawless version of “looking good”.

In a world where older women are elbowed off the television news because their faces, rather than their news judgement, start to sag, what hope for those whose features even further removed from what is deemed be aesthetically pleasing? Changing Faces has already worked with Channel Five news to shatter such stereotypes.

But if women, ethnic minorities and people with disabilities are under-represented in television, then people whose differences are more obvious are, ironically, even more invisible.

And if facial differences feature on television, they do so in a medical capacity, in documentaries that present abnormality as something to be gawped at or “put right”. While the concept behind The Undateables might have been well-intentioned, it was the title of the show that put me off.

As Changing Faces’ chief executive James Partridge said in response to that Channel 4 series: “TV series with derisory titles makes life just that bit more difficult – it’s so unnecessary and it’s unfair. Very good factual and sensitive documentaries on disfigurement-related topics are frequently spoiled by offensive titles such as ‘Freak show family’, ‘The man with tree trunks for legs’ and ‘Bodyshock’. They are contrived to attract audiences but actually label the human being in the film in a sensationalist and voyeuristic way, treating him or her as an object rather than a person.”

At the risk of getting sidetracked down this road, I remember gritting my teeth a few years ago to get past the utterly ludicrous title of The Strangest Village in Britain. It was, was in fact a sensitive portrayal of life at Camphill’s Botton village which featured much of the good support that has made a difference to my family’s life – not that you’d know that from the objectionable title.

Back to today’s campaign launch; a YouGov survey of 1,741 adults commissioned by the charity last month found that bad teeth, scars, burns and other conditions affecting the face are viewed as the most common indicators of an evil film character. According to the poll, ethnic minorities, bald and disabled people are all thought to be portrayed in more diverse ways than those with disfigurements.

Responding to the poll, 66% said people with bad teeth mainly play evil characters
and 48% said that people with conditions altering their appearance mainly play evil characters. Meanwhile, 30% said that bald people mainly play evil such roles compared to 13% who felt those from ethnic minorities mainly portrayed bad characters.
Interestingly, 6% said that people with physical disabilities (in a wheelchair or have missing limbs) mainly play evil characters.

Partridge adds of today’s campaign: “It would seem as if all the film industry has to do to depict evil and villainy is apply a scar or a prosthetic eye socket or remove a limb and every movie goer knows that it’s time to be suspicious, scared or repulsed…Freddie Krueger, Scarface and Two-Face are just some of the names that our clients get called at school, on the street and at work. They have to put up with people laughing at them, recoiling, running away or staring in disbelief that they can and do live a normal life.”

* You can sign the charity’s online petition demanding an end to the stigma reinforced on screen.

Health, Mental health, Social exclusion, Uncategorized, Wellbeing

The power of a poem: how reading broke David’s isolation

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EleanorMcCann, TheReader project

Guest post by Eleanor McCann, The Reader project

Whenever I arrived to read with patients at the psychiatric hospital, David was always alone. I approached him a few times but the weeks went by and he seemed unreachable, saying nothing and making no eye contact. One evening, I came on to the ward to find him lying on a sofa with the lights off, his hood up and his earphones in. All the barriers were up. I handed him a poem and, to my amazement, he took his earphones out, his hood down and said: “Can you turn on the light?”

The poem I gave to David was Release, by R.S. Gwynn. It goes:

Slow for the sake of flowers as they turn
Toward sunlight, graceful as a line of sail
Coming into the wind. Slow for the mill-
Wheel’s heft and plummet, for the chug and churn
Of water as it gathers, for the frail
Half-life of spraylets as they toss and spill.

For all that lags and eases, all that shows
The winding-downward and diminished scale
Of days declining to a twilit chill,
Breathe quietly, release into repose:
Be still.

I think the poem’s stillness broke David’s silence. After that, he joined the reading group on his ward, where we enjoyed short stories, such as Saki’s The Lumber Room and Doris Lessing’s Through the Tunnel; extracts from novels including Jane Eyre and The Old Man and the Sea and poems old and new. We read Release with the group and David said he loved the last two lines, especially. He said: “Poems can move you even though you’re sat still. Probably you actually have to be still like it says there. It’s different from feeling manic.”

Weekly Get Into Reading groups bring people together to read aloud. Pic: The Reader project

David has instructed me to always approach him: “Come and knock on my door, even when I’m in the dark and I’ve got my back to you.” This is the essence of why the reading project exists: to knock on doors, bringing light and lightness through reading.

David’s group is one of about 280 Get Into Reading (GIR) groups across the UK. GIR brings people together through weekly read aloud groups, where people can choose to read and are invited to give personal responses. We have groups in locations such as care homes, libraries, prisons, mental health drop-in centres, community centres, schools, hostels, refugee centres and workplaces. Sessions are an opportunity for people of all ages, backgrounds and abilities to engage with reading for pleasure. The work aims to bring about, what we call, a Reading Revolution. This means we want to make literature available to those most in need in our society, as a way of fostering individual wellbeing and social cohesion.

Reading as part of a group can bring mental health benefits. Pic: The Reader project

I work specifically within mental health settings so my groups are in a variety of health-care environments: older people’s care homes; psychiatric units; secure hospitals and addictions services. This type of work is an innovation. The medical director of Mersey Care NHS Trust has said that “Get Into Reading is one of the biggest developments in mental health practice in the last 10 years.” We believe our model is a pioneering way of using creative partnership to deliver meaningful activity to patients. Reading should not be merely an additional intervention; I would identify it as an integral part of the care provision for mental health patients.

My grandmother was an occupational therapist in the 1960s and 70s, and she remembers reading aloud with some of the people with whom she came into contact. It’s just that we are only now really realising the full extent of the potential that literature has to help people- and that this can amount to the transformation of lives and communities.

We have recently carried out some evaluation so have statistics to substantiate this. 54 reading group attendees, both inpatients and outpatients, filled in a questionnaire. The results showed very encouraging responses to their experience of the reading groups.

There were some overwhelmingly positive results, for example, 94% of people agreed with the statement ‘The reading group has given me a chance to take part in interesting discussions’ – but the results form our research are particularly relevant in the context of mental health. In response to the statement “reading has improved my mood”, 78% agreed, 18% neither agreed nor disagreed and just 4% disagreed. And in reaction to the statement that “in the group I’m able to be myself”, 79% agreed, 19% neither agreed nor disagreed and just 2% disagreed. Our research showed 85% agreed with the comment “I’m more able to relax” while 11% neither agreed nor disagreed and 5% disagreed.

I find my work extremely rewarding, primarily because of qualitative, individualised stories like David’s, but this is verified by a growing evidence base, pointing to cost-effective, lasting benefits for our readers.

* Eleanor McCann is a project worker with Mersey Care Reads, a collaboration between The Reader Organisation and Mersey Care NHS Trust. The organisation was a runner-up in last year’s Guardian Public Service Award. Eleanor’s work involves delivering weekly reading groups in mental health settings across Merseyside. She is also studying for a masters in Reading in Practice, a course combining literature and health science, at the University of Liverpool and is co-editor of The Reader magazine. Eleanor can be contacted at eleanormccann@thereader.org.uk

Big society, Blogging, Education, Employment, Health, Housing, Learning disability, Local government, Music & arts, Older people, Poverty, Social care, Social enterprise, Social exclusion, Third sector, Uncategorized, Volunteering, Wellbeing, Women, Young people, Youth crime

12 days of Christmas, Social Issue-style

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

Six(ty) volunteers

Young volunteer with City Corps, Rodney WIlliams

Seven(teen) pairs of wellies

Abandoned festival rubbish, Wales, gets recycled for the homeless, pic credit: Graham Williams

Eight(een-years-old and over) people campaigning

Participants in the Homeless Games, Liverpool

1950s hall revamping

"The kid who talked of burning down the place is now volunteering to paint it."

10 lads a leaping

11-year-olds integrating

Children's al fresco activiites at the Big Life group summer scheme

12(+) painters painting

View from the Southbank of Tower Bridge, Aaron Pilgrim, CoolTan Arts

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Cuts, Health, Local government, Older people, Social care, Wellbeing

More recognition for the role of carers

Janet Down only realised she was a full-time carer for her disabled husband when she fell ill a few years ago and could not look after him. Suffering back pain from lifting and depression from coping unsupported, her inability to care for 65-year-old Dave exposed just how much she did for him. This prompted her to recognise her role, accept she needed help and find leaflets about caring at her library.

Carer aware, an innovative project that Down subsequently participated in and designed by Dudley borough council, is making it easier for carers like Down to get support. The online mini-training toolkit offers an explanation of carers’ rights, better access to support and reassurance that professionals are recognising carers’ issues. Down now champions the scheme as chair of Dudley Carers Forum. “Knowing how and what the carer is entitled to receive is empowering,” she says. Read the full piece here on the Guardian Social Care Network.

Health, Mental health, Social care, Social exclusion, Third sector, Uncategorized, Volunteering, Wellbeing

We should be kind, while there is still time

Lol Butterfield, mental health campaigner
Over 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.

Cuts, Education, Employment, Third sector, Uncategorized, Volunteering, Wellbeing, Young people

Neets: “Unemployment knocked my self-esteem..I wasn’t good enough at anything.”

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.