See Me Champion Kath shares her reflections from our latest Champions gathering.
Thursday 18th October 2018
So here I am, sitting in a hotel room which See Me business support have organised for me in advance of the liaison event tomorrow. I’ve had a very much blessed car journey down to Glasgow with a fellow Champion. We’ve chatted and shared (confidentially of course!) all the way, the ‘Power of Conversation’ already! I’ve felt encouraged, supported and overwhelmed (in a positive sense) and we haven’t even reached tomorrow yet!
I have Major Depressive Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder has more recently been tossed in for good measure! So I’m curious to hear others’ experiences, interested to learn more about society’s views today on the subject of mental health, eager to understand and address self-stigma, searching to understand what support there is ‘on the ground’ for those living daily with the big ‘black dog’, what support there is for children of those living with mental ill health (I have two teenage daughters) and critically, having lost my brother to suicide, what are we doing as a nation to tackle such senseless loss of life?
Saturday 20th October 2018
If I’ve got my numbers right, there were 23 people involved in the See Me Champion’s meeting yesterday, 15 ladies and 8 men. We began by connecting up, introducing ourselves and sharing an interesting fact about ourselves. It was very relaxed and both interesting and entertaining to hear some folk’s interesting facts; artistic gifts, a teacher, someone looking to start a choir, poetry and of course folk sharing specific involvement with mental health awareness activities like conversation cafes and ‘let’s talk’ projects. What an interesting and inspiring bunch of people!
We moved on to the See Me Update by the Communications Team, about the tools of communication being used to end mental health discrimination; research, social media, images, icons, messages and so on. We were asked for our own ideas in contributing to See Me’s revamp of their social media to tackle stigma in the workplace, health and social care, education and young people and communities. On 7th February 2019 there will be a Time to Talk day, an event to get people talking about mental health and again, See Me were looking for ideas from Champions too. The theme will be recipes, that is, what makes change?
We were updated by the Social Movement Team on particular areas of work. I was particularly interested to hear about Feels FM, an online emoji juke box aimed at promoting music as a positive coping strategy to help young people deal with feelings and to encourage sharing of views about what might make a difference for young people in Scotland in helping to end stigma and discrimination around mental health (See Me, n.d.). There was talk about work in the health and social care sector, such as distress brief interventions and complexities with mental health and physical health; in the workplace with the Workplace Equalities Fund (WEF); and in social movement with, amongst others, the Moray Wellbeing Hub, Deaf Scotland, international engagements, experiences within black ethnic minorities groups, human rights toolkits and more. I never realised how wide reaching the work of mental health awareness is!
Following on two Champions pitched in to the Champion’s Update. Firstly, a lady read a couple of poems, The Art of Conversation and Discrimination. They were powerful, hard hitting in a sense and certainly provoked silent contemplation from our group as she read! It prompted a discussion about using poetry and other means from the arts in the cause, in tackling stigma and discrimination. Next a lady spoke about her involvement with the Global Mental Health Summit. This was likewise interesting as she shared with us aims and in particular, some targets involving diversity, policies and programmes and learning experience. A couple of others spoke about a Conversation Café they’re running in Edinburgh in November and another about a pop-up event to challenge workplace stigma and discrimination. So much is going on and I knew so little!
Over lunch I chatted with a few people including the chap looking to start a choir and a young lady about her interest in contact with folk from the Moray Wellbeing Hub in a slightly more research capacity.
After lunch we looked at Growing the Movement. A lady read a story, Jo’s Acorns, which was not a true story, but it held within it a beauty and a calm-instilling feel. This led into activity time where in small groups we talked about a time when we had shared about our mental health challenges and received a positive response. The lady I spoke with told me how her positive response came from her GP when she said she no longer wanted to take medication and the GP listened and then directed her towards non-medical support. She embraced this and her journey of recovery began. It got me thinking, I found myself stuck, unable to think of such a time myself. It wasn’t that I’d necessarily always received a negative response, but I couldn’t particularly identify with a positive one. But then I’m not always very open about my own mental health challenges. We regrouped and looked at the Power of Conversation and talked about how conversation isn’t necessarily in verbal form; we’d already heard poetry and stories, but there were artistic forms, music and more too. In discussing our shared experiences, a number of things came out, probably things we already knew but it was a useful reflection. For example, you may be the first in a line of dominoes that have a ripple effect when you share. You may never know the positive knock-on effect your sharing has, it may sow seeds that grow to be momentous in the future. We talked about the impact of self-stigma, experiences and even the dilemma of whether to disclose or not on job application forms for example.
We looked at the Tools for Conversations and continued with discussion around community led partnerships, the peer to peer approach, building on what we already have and linking in with others such as Stigma Free Lanarkshire, the Moray Wellbeing Hub, the Scottish Council on Deafness (SCoD) and others. We talked about greater engagement with local authorities and asked the question, how do we reach people when so much of the activities tend to revolve around the same people, such that we almost seem to be ‘preaching to the converted’. We discussed how important it is that we ourselves avoid falling into the trap of ‘reverse-stigmatising’, as we aim to tackle stigma we need to beware of creating stigma towards those who appear to stigmatise us, when perhaps it is simply a case of there being a lack of knowledge and understanding rather than direct, persecutory stigma.
We jumped into another activity where we asked the question, what is needed to further empower communities to lead the movement for change in tackling mental health stigma and discrimination? Into my head popped things like the suffragette movement, black and white equality, equal pay for men and women… now we look at equality of rights for those with mental health ‘disability’. We talked about motivation within communities and how people without mental health challenges might be involved in leading the movement. One lady made a statement that for some reason resounded with me somewhat, equity and inclusion rather than equality and diversity, interesting thought.
After the break we looked into See Me Tools for Conversation and briefly touched on the Champion’s Support Fund. As a group we looked at the tools already in place and their effectiveness. Tools such as merchandise, stickers, badges, posters, etc. They may seem to be a costly and possibly ignored tool at times, but of course, you never know the impact of a See Me sticker on your phone case catching someone’s eye, or a badge worn around your workplace… Tools come in so many forms, not just merchandise, pop-up cafes, networking events, games, Earth for Life (Earth for Life, 2015), Feels FM, written forms like Write to Recovery (Scottish Recovery Network, 2018), arts, music, even therapy dogs. We did, broadly speaking, agree that it helps to ‘know your audience’ and to try to tailor resources to suit different environments and individual learning styles. Could Feels FM, for example, be adapted for use with the elderly? Whatever tools we use, they need to be accessible, relevant and concentrated. See Me encouraged us to come to them with ideas and assured us that funding is available if we need it.
Where now?
I left the meeting and supported by a fellow Champion, made my way to the train station and began my journey home. As I reflect, I wonder what role I might play. The prospect of direct peer support, pop-up cafes, stalls, direct interactions… almost leaves me anxious, that these types of things I could not do. I enjoy writing, ‘enjoy’ may not be the right word, it’s more that I find writing easier and I feel able to be more focused. Strangely though, the idea of wider liaison, nationally, even internationally, does appeal. I look at what Princes William and Harry have been doing and kind of what to jump in head first. I’m interested in mental health policy and the work of the Scottish Mental Health Research Network (SMHRN). Mental health strategy, suicide prevention, tackling self-harm, the progress of mental health legislation, policies, practices, even laws, speaking out about what works and what creates more damage (not that I’m necessarily an expert!) I’d relish the opportunity to attend conferences to learn, share, input, grow… I guess I look back on my life and want to contribute to the future, to turn the bad, the ugly, the black, into good, beauty and light.
References
Earth for Life, 2015. Earth for Life. [Online]
Available at: https://www.earthforlife.org/
[Accessed 20 10 2018].
Scottish Recovery Network, 2018. Write to Recovery. [Online]
Available at: https://www.writetorecovery.net/
[Accessed 20 10 2018].
See Me, n.d. Feels FM. [Online]
Available at: https://www.seemescotland.org/young-people/resources/campaigns/run-your-feels-fm-activity/
[Accessed 20 10 2018].
