From: Goggin, Barry J.
Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2009 8:16 AM
To: VHA National Local Recovery Coordinators
Subject: Anti-Stigma Campaign in England
Biggest ever mental health anti-stigma campaign launched
Mind, Rethink and Mental Health Media lead anti-discrimination push
Posted: 21 January 2009 | Subscribe Online
http://www.reedbusiness.co.uk/rb2_products/rb2_products_community_care.htm
writes Daniel Lombard
England's biggest ever mental health anti-stigma programme, Time to
Change http://www.time-to-change.org.uk/ , began today with a
national
media campaign intended to reach 24m people.
The three-year, £18m programme kicks off with a television advert to be
shown during Coronation Street on ITV1 tonight.
A month-long advertising blitz by Mind, Rethink and Mental Health Media
will continue in newspapers, magazines and the London Underground, with
marketing also delivered on posters, beer mats, commercial radio and
Facebook.
Dispelling myths
Media volunteers, including celebrities such as Stephen Fry and Ruby
Wax, will attempt to change public attitudes by sharing their
experiences of mental illness.
They plan to challenge misconceptions such as the idea that people with
mental illness never recover, and are violent and unpredictable.
Anti-stigma events, many involving sport and physical exercise, will
bring people with and without mental health problems together in
communities across England over the next three years.
Ambitious
Peter Wanless, chief executive of the Big Lottery Fund, which has
provided £16m of the funding - Comic Relief donated the remaining £2m -
called it the "most ambitious anti-stigma programme in the world".
The long-term goal is to end mental health discrimination, but
initially progress will be measured against two targets: to reduce
discrimination by 5% by 2012, and to create a 5% improvement in public
attitudes towards mental health problems.
Researchers from the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College, London,
will interview 1,000 volunteers with mental health problems each year
about their experiences in the community, to assess whether these are
being met.
Legal challenge
The programme, which has the backing of prime minister Gordon Brown,
includes training for trainee teachers and doctors, and legal test
cases
aiming to challenge discrimination through the courts.
Louis Appleby, NHS national director for mental health in England,
wrote in the launch booklet: "More than six out of ten employers freely
admit they would not recruit someone with a mental health problem. It
is
high time that society caught up and realised it is not OK to be
prejudiced against people with mental health problems."
Related articles
http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2007/07/18/105143/mental-health-anti-stigma-campaign-launches.html
Mental health anti-stigma campaign launches
http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2007/07/18/105143/mental-health-anti-stigma-campaign-launches.html
External information
http://www.time-to-change.org.uk/what-were-doing/our-campaign/about-the-campaign
Watch the Time to Change television advert
http://www.time-to-change.org.uk/what-were-doing/our-campaign/about-the-campaign
Rethink - Time to Change
http://www.rethink.org/how_we_can_help/campaigning_for_change/time_to_change/
Mind - Time to Change http://www.mind.org.uk/TimetoChange/index.htm