Mental Health Stigma We are Melissa and Leah from Investing in Children

Investing in Children Investing in children is a human rights organisation that works for children and young people. One of the things that gets in the way of this is that some children feel they are not listened to and still many people believe that “children should be seen and not heard”. Investing in children is trying to change this by getting young people to work with adults who want to listen and make change.

What we were asked to do We were asked by investing in children to create a DVD around mental health stigma, to be shown in schools and possibly youth clubs in order to tackle the stigma that is around mental health and help change young people’s views on mental health

Meeting the experts To be able to do a DVD we needed research and extra help in understanding what mental health is. So the mental health experts came in to meet with us and give us some statistics and examples to help us understand what mental health is about and how it affects other people. We also went to a meeting in Birmingham as part of the national pilot of tackling the stigma of mental health.

An insight to bipolar Although we were starting to learn a lot about mental health when we found out we had an opportunity to meet a lady with bipolar we thought it was a good chance to learn even more. She came in and was very open about her bipolar and explained to us the ups and downs she had faced, and even gave us her stages of how she felt rating from 1 to 10 … we thought it was really interesting and very informative

Agenda Day An Agenda Day is a research model for working with children and young people. The idea is to give the opportunity to large groups of children and young people to meet in adult-free environments to express their views. Agenda Days are planned and delivered by young people, who act as the facilitators.

Agenda Day On the 14th June 2010, we met with approximately 60 students aged from Greencroft Comprehensive.

Main issues from Agenda Day Young people had a range of views of what mental health was, a lot of which was negative, stigmatizing and extreme. Young people linked mental health problems with a wide range of reasons, with some focusing on personal problems, such as family breakdowns, loss and abuse, while some others associated it with negative thinking or due to genetics.

Main issues from Agenda Day Young people found out about mental health through personal experience (e.g. within families) and through conversations with friends and others, the media, and through health messages. Young people commented that young people don’t read posters or leaflets, but highlighted that they want more information through books, magazines, posters, leaflets, the Internet, etc. (which may suggest that what is currently being used is not working as well as it could be.)

Main issues from Agenda Day Young people highlighted family, friends, friendly teachers, youth workers, and a local mental health doctor as the people they would like to receive support from, and identified that this support should be local and include meetings, workshops and activities to improve their understanding of mental health issues.

Planning our DVD First we sat in a large group and discussed issues that we thought were the main causes of mental health. Then we split into pairs and picked a topic from the list that we would look at, we each had a different topic, ours was Eating Disorders. We then went to work on our story and came up with situations we thought would put across battling stigma in a realistic way.

Our DVD

Thanks for listening Any questions?