Who Are You Trying To Reach
Changing the attitudes and behaviours of ‘everyone’ is a tall order. Look at any evidence about your local community to help you decide where to start. Ask yourself ‘What is the stigma and discrimination need we have to address here?’
For each of your objectives it is important to identify who you are trying to influence and who can help you do this. ‘see me’ has identified a number of groups for targeted attention.
These include:
- the general public (part of ‘see me’s ‘broad-brush- approach)
- young people
- employers and work colleagues
- friends and families
- people who provide and work within public services including health services
‘see me’ works closely with people who have lived experience of mental ill-health, stigma and discrimination throughout our campaign, to make sure that our work reflects their experiences.
Three things you need to think about when selecting your target group:
- what is the evidence that says that working with this group will make a difference?
- What does this group already think? What are their attitudes and behaviours towards mental ill-health?
- How effective will working with this group be? Is this the best use of your time/resources?
A good starting point for local work is to link with ‘see me’ to use the ready made materials to target the groups highlighted above – these can be ordered free of charge from the ‘see me’ website.
Find out what’s already happening; either nationally or within your local area. Consider linking with existing programmes and people e.g. in places like schools, work places, colleges, public services and service user and carer organisations. Remember that your activities should involve and reflect the mental health stigma needs of your whole community. Think about who makes up your community and find out if there are any specific groups representing them. For example, can you work with older people to make sure that their mental health needs are not dismissed? Can you link up with people from minority ethnic communities to do joint work on mental health stigma and discrimination?
As part of identifying your target group it is also useful to identify those who can help you do this. Identify who has the responsibility, influence and connections to ‘open doors’.