1. Be In Your Mate’s Corner
Section Title
Be In Your Mate’s Corner
In everyone’s corner
Length of the assembly: 10 minutes

2. Did you know? Did you know?
70% of young people with a mental health problem experience negative reactions from their friends
Last week we learnt a bit about mental health. This is the last week of our series around being in your mate’s corner and today we’re going to look at what we can do to make our school/youth group a place where noone is made to feel isolated or ashamed.

3. In everyone’s corner
9 out of 10 people with a mental health problem have experienced negative reactions or judgement because of it
As well as from friends, 40% experienced stigma from teachers, 57% from parents and 45% from their boyfriend or girlfriend
Being in everyone’s corner does not mean you have to be ready to deal with everyone’s problems. It means that together we can create an environment free from judgement
Being in everyone’s corner is not about having to be there for everyone. It is about creating a safe, friendly environment where noone is made to feel isolated or ashamed because of a mental health problem.

4. Making a difference
“Our 6th form created a wall where people have said what they do to stay mentally healthy”
Chloe
“I handed out over a hundred Time to Change leaflets and encouraged people to talk about their mental health”
Bryony
“I pledged to say at least one nice thing to everybody I talk to every day!”
Year 9 student
Making a difference and creating an environment that is free from mental health stigma does not need to be difficult. It can happen by saying one small thing to someone, up to leading a whole social movement. Here are examples of what some young people have done to create a mental health friendly environment in their school. Read them out and add your own if you know any.

5. What can I do?
We are all a part of this community and all play a role in making it a friendly environment. What could you personally do to create an environment where people feel less alone? What would you like to see from your teachers/youth workers? How would you like your school/youth club to change? Ask your young people to discuss this in pairs or think about it for a moment. If you can, get people to feed back to the group.
In a classroom setting you could take longer and use this time to plan out activity you can run within the school.
This could also be an opportunity to have a suggestions box in the school where students can anonymously write down what they would like to see from the school around their wellbeing.

6. What can I do? Be in your mate’s corner
Share an ‘In your corner’ video on social media to show your mates that you are there for them
Be mindful of your language
If you feel comfortable, challenge unfair behaviour when you see it
Join Time to Change and help campaign to end mental health stigma
Most importantly, we should be there for our mates. But you might also want to share one of the videos we showed in the first week about how to be in your mates corner? You could be a bit more mindful of your language? Calling someone attention seeking or weird or using words like ‘psycho’ might be upsetting for someone experiencing quite distressing things.
If you have more time in your session you could print these pledge cards - and get your students to pledge how they will end mental health stigma at your school/youth group

7. Making a difference Think back to our two mates, Eric and Guy...
Ask your young people if they remember the two guys from the first week. Play your favourite of the 5 videos or all of them, you can see the playlist here -
If you can’t play them, ask your young people if they remember what things Eric did to be in his mate’s corner.
Play Videos

8. Making a difference
How do you think it felt for Guy to have Eric in his corner?
You know your mates better than anyone.
Let your friends know how you are in their corner.
Send them a postcard, write a text - you can make a huge difference
Ask your young people how they think it felt for Guy to have Eric in his corner.
Your young people know their mates better than anyone, whether their friend has a mental health problem, is having a difficult time or if they’re feeling better than ever – encourage them to let their mate know that they’re there for them. If you have been able to print off the postcards from our downloadable resources – then this is where they can be used. If you can facilitate young people sending these to each other it can be a really good way of engaging young people in the message. Maybe have a post box in your ‘in your corner’ corner or in the form room, ask a student or ‘prefect’ type group to facilitate distributing them out to each other.

9. You do not need to be an expert to be in your mate’s corner:
Remember
Remember
You do not need to be an expert to be in your mate’s corner:
Listen, don’t judge
Just reach out
Be by their side
Do small things
Do something together

10. Remember
Mental health problems are normal and very common. 1 in 10 young people will experience them this year.
If you are worried about yourself or someone else:
Speak to a parent, teacher or your GP
Speak to a responsible adult who you trust
Call Childline –

11. www.time-to-change.org.uk or find us on
Find out more about how you can help end the judgement around mental health problems. Visit
or find us on

12. Thank You Section Title Find out more: www.time-to-change.org.uk
End of presentation