Campaign news

This years theme is Research shows that doing good and helping others is good for your mental health. A simple thing that you could do is…..Reach out to a colleague who is depressed or stressed and offer them your kindness and support? Read more about raising awareness: http://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/our-work/mhaw/

We had a fantastic time at our Annual Involvement conference on Wednesday and it was great to celebrate our Trust’s 10 year anniversary. It was really good for our hard work with our ‘Sticks and Stones’ campaign to also get recognised – here’s to a successful third year. Photos and Videos to follow soon.

Yesterday was April fools day and marked our 2 year Anniversary for our Sticks and Stones campaign. This will be our third year of stamping out stigma against people with Mental ill-health and Learning Disabilities. Thank you to everyone for your support so far, lets work together to have another successful year, thanks again!.

On 14 March 2012, the year 8 and 9 pupils at St. Gregory’s Catholic High School in Warrington got the chance to step into an diary room-style Big Brother Booth and talk about what they had learnt from the ‘Sticks and Stones’ campaign lessons that they had been taking part as part of their PSHE lessons.

St Gregory’s was the first school to become an official partner school of the campaign and they have been using the campaign’s Key Stage 3 & 4 resource packs in their PSHE lessons over the past few months, to help stamp out stigma against people with mental ill-health and learning disabilities among their pupils.

As a follow up to these lessons, the ‘Sticks and Stones’ team took the interactive diary room-style booth into the school, to find out what they had learnt about mental illness, learning disabilities and stigma, and what they would do differently in the future, as a result.

Throughout the day, 55 children visited the booth to speak to ‘Big Brother’ about their views on mental illness and learning disabilities. The children were asked the following three questions:

1. How did you feel about people with mental illnesses and learning disabilities before you started learning about the ‘Sticks and Stones’ campaign?
2. How have your views on mental illness, learning disabilities and stigma changed since learning about the ‘Sticks and Stones’ campaign?
3. What will you do differently as a result of what you’ve learned about mental illness and learning disability stigma?

Look out for video clips of the footage from the booth which will be appearing on the website soon, to find out what the young people had to say!

If you’re interested in using our schools resource packs in your school or if you know someone who you think may benefit from the packs, you can download a copy by visiting the schools section of our website.

Alternatively, you can request a hard copy of the packs along with a CD ROM and some campaign merchandise by emailing sophie.ellis@5bp.nhs.uk.

Social Media Week 2012 took place from 13-17 February, reflecting the global impact of social media in driving social, economical and cultural change. To mark the occasion, the ‘Sticks and Stones’ campaign team held a ‘tweet-athon’ throughout the week via their @istampoutstigma Twitter page, posting a succession of planned tweets to their followers between Monday and Friday.

Social media played a key role in the success of the 5 Boroughs Partnership NHS Foundation Trust’s ‘Sticks and Stones’ campaign, which aims to stamp out the stigma surrounding mental ill-health and learning disabilities. Social networking sites, Facebook and Twitter, have allowed the Trust to engage with a wide audience of people to effectively communicate its campaign message.

Twitter, which allows users to post 140 character messages – known as tweets – to an audience of followers, helped to boost the number of pledges to the campaign by over 5000 in May 2010, when Stephen Fry tweeted his support to ‘Sticks and Stones’. He posted a message, encouraging his followers to sign up to the campaign, pledging not to use words that are hurtful or offensive to describe people with mental ill-health and learning disabilities. This rapid increase in support shows just how powerful social media can be in reaching a wide audience with a message.

By tweeting several times a day during Social Media Week, the ‘tweet-athon’ saw the number of followers on the @istampoutstigma page grow by 86 between Monday and Friday, and the account received over 100 re-tweets during the course of the week, meaning the ‘Sticks and Stones’ campaign values were being shared to an even wider audience across the site. The team tweeted thought-provoking content and interesting statistics, engaging with their followers by encouraging them to get involved in debates around mental health and learning disability stigma. By the end of the week, 24 people were engaged in conversations on Twitter about @istampoutstigma.

NHS North West, the Strategic Health Authority for the whole of the North West region, also helped to promote the ‘Sticks and Stones’ campaign throughout the week by re-tweeting the @istampoutstigma page’s tweets on their own Twitter page. To date, the ‘Sticks and Stones’ campaign Twitter account has 1,632 followers – and counting! You can visit the ‘Sticks and Stones’ campaign’s Twitter page at: www.twitter.com/istampoutstigma.

Jade Kersalls has first-hand experience of the challenges that mental health stigma can present. Driven by her passion and determination, Jade has been instrumental in the success of  the ‘Sticks and Stones’  campaign and has recently won an award for her achievements supporting this crucial National initiative.

Jade, who has a personality disorder and is supported by ILA, part of the Lifeways Group in Merseyside, says; “A few years ago, life was very difficult. I’d had a number of placements which weren’t right for me and all the normal things that people take for granted, such as going to the shops, I couldn’t do – and I always blamed myself whenever things went wrong.”

In 2007 Jade got involved with the 5 Boroughs Partnership NHS Foundation Trust ‘Service User and Carer Involvement Scheme’. In 2010 she became a key member of the Trust’s ‘Sticks and Stones’ campaign volunteer group, helping to challenge mental health and learning disability-related stigma. Since then Jade has been using her own experiences to make a positive difference to others with mental health needs.

“I still feel that there are a lot negative perceptions and derogatory language where mental health is concerned, and that is what the work of the  ‘Sticks and Stones’ campaign aims to tackle.” Jade explains.

Jade has been involved in a number of key projects, including delivering presentations in women’s refuges and prisons across the region.

She says: “Our aim is to invite employers to sign  the campaign petition on behalf of their workforce and become a corporate  partner  of the campaign – demonstrating their commitment to promoting an understanding of mental health within their company culture.”

Jade recently won a Warrington Disability Partnership ‘Appreciation of Effort ‘ award in recognition of her commitment to her work on this campaign.

Dave Thompson MBE, Chair of The Warrington Disability Partnership says: “I  have had the pleasure of working with Jade in my capacity as Assistant Director of Inclusion and Partnerships at the Trust. In terms of her skills and confidence, Jade is unrecognisable from when we first met her. She was nominated for the Appreciation of Effort award in recognition of all the fantastic work that she’s done in promoting the campaign and helping to sign up organisations such as  the Environment Agency and  Everton in the Community, as well as promoting awareness of personality disorders.”

“Together with my fellow judges we were extremely impressed by Jade’s determination and passion for implementation and social change.” Dave adds.

Jade reflects back: “I’ve really enjoyed all this work and am really proud of my achievements. I wouldn’t be where I am today without my involvement in this group, as well as the support of ILA staff and my social work team, who have believed in me all the way. The only difference is that now, I also believe in myself!’

(This interview has been reproduced with kind permission of our Corporate Partner Lifeways www.lifeways.co.uk)

Photo – Jade (centre) with Karen Jones (right) and Samantha Brennan (left). Both ILA and Natural Networks have signed up to the Stamp Out Stigma Campaign.

Debt problems seem to be the forefront of everyones mind, more so at this time of year and It’s important to know one thing. For as long as Martin Lewis (Money Expert) has been the Money Saving Expert, he has never once seen a case of debt that can’t be solved. No matter how bad it seems, while it may not always be easy or quick, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Of course, when mental health is involved, sometimes just having the energy to deal with it is tough. And that’s what the guide below is about: recognising that mental health and debt is a marriage made in hell, so we’ve easy practical steps you can take to get back on track.

If nothing else, the fact there’s so much demand for this info that they’ve created this booklet should tell you you’re not alone. Follow this link to view a Guide to Mental Health and Debt: http://images.moneysavingexpert.com/images/attachment/mentalhealthguide.pdf

On 11 January the ‘Sticks and Stones’ team paid a visit to St Gregory’s Catholic High School, Warrington and ran a series of taster sessions for year 8 and year 9 pupils around mental ill-health and learning disabilities.

St Gregory’s, which was the first school in Warrington to become an official Corporate Partner of the campaign, will be using the ‘Sticks and Stones’ Key Stage 3 & 4 schools pack in their PSHE lessons over the coming months to help educate their pupils about the stigma surrounding mental ill-health and learning disabilities.

The interactive workshops saw pupils taking part in a number of activities, including a quiz, where pupils worked in small teams to answer a number of questions and identify a series of famous faces who all have a connection with mental ill-health or learning disabilities.

At the end of the sessions, the children were asked to each ‘throw away’ one stigmatising word that is used to describe people with mental ill-health or learning disabilities. They were asked to write the word on a piece of paper and then throw it into a waste bin at the front of the classroom, explaining their classmates why they had chosen that word. By throwing the stigmatising words into the bin, the children were making a physical gesture and promising not to use the word again in the future.

These workshops will form a basis for the school’s upcoming PSHE lessons, which will all be based around the ‘Sticks and Stones’ campaign. In March the ‘Sticks and Stones’ team will be taking the purpose-built Diary room into the school, giving the pupils a chance to talk about how the lessons have affected their views of mental ill-health and learning disabilities, and what they are going to do differently as a result.

Head of Key Stage 3 PSHE, Elisabeth Whelan said:

 “The pupils all responded really positively to the workshops and were keen to get involved with the discussions around mental ill-health and learning disabilities. I was amazed by the honesty of the pupils and their eagerness to learn more about the topic.”

 “They were surprised to discover that one in ten children between the ages of 0 and 15 has a diagnosable mental illness, the need to educate others that people with mental ill-health should not be bullied or ridiculed by their peers and the importance that if they or anyone they know ever experiences mental distress, they should not be afraid or ashamed to seek help for it.”

To find out more about how the ‘Sticks and Stones’ campaign can help to Stamp out Stigma in your school, e-mail sophie.ellis@5bp.nhs.uk or click here to download our Key Stage 1 & 2 or Key Stage 3 & 4 schools resources