Hear Me 2 (too)!

February saw the launch of our second national ‘stigma survey’ – aiming to capture the experiences of those who have or have had mental ill-health. This survey is vital; it’s the only one of its kind in the country and should give the campaign, and anyone else working in this area, a real insight into how stigma and discrimination impact on people’s lives.

The first survey – in 2007 – provided a useful baseline: it told
us that 85% of people said they felt more able to be open about their experiences of mental illness than they had done previously, but that they were still likely to face stigma when they disclosed it.

The survey revealed several areas where people were most likely to experience stigma and discrimination: with friends and families, in their local communities, at work and when accessing health services (including mental health services). These findings have formed the foundations for ‘see me’s recent advertising campaign (‘Be There. Be Yourself.’) and our new national plan.

And the survey also told us that not all illnesses or diagnoses are viewed the same way, with personality disorders, schizophrenia and eating disorders receiving more prejudice than depression, anxiety and bi-polar disorder. In addition, we found out for the first time, that fear of experiencing stigma (sometimes called ‘self-stigma’) comes to feature highly in the way that people with mental health problems view themselves.

So what’s new for Hear Me 2? Many of the questions are the same (so we can track progress over time) but we have made two important changes. The first survey was very complicated to fill in if you were responding both as a ‘carer’
and as someone with a mental health problem. We’ve resolved this by making
this a survey just about direct lived experience of mental ill-health. We’ll be launching a survey aimed solely at ‘carers’ or anyone who provides care and support to someone with a mental health problem later this year. Look out for it!

The other main change is that we want to find out even more about ‘self-stigma’ and have changed the questions about this slightly so that we can find out HOW this affects people (not just ‘where’).

This survey is the main way that we can find out how stigma and discrimination affects real lives. In 2007 – with the fact that this was a new survey – we were able to get lots of local press coverage and this helped us to get over 1200 returned responses. We really need to match that this time and we know it will be hard to do.

But you can help! Firstly by completing the questionnaire yourself (don’t put it off – do it today!) online at www.seemescotland.org/hearme2 and also by helping
‘see me’ to promote this survey anywhere and everywhere! If you’d like to help
us get local press coverage for the survey and could take a bundle of printed surveys and get them displayed in your local community, please give us a call on 0131 554 0218. Good places to display these might be staff rooms at work, GPs' waiting rooms, hospitals, libraries, community centres – if you think of some good places, let us know.

Winners in a positive frame of mind

The national winners of the first ‘see me’ photography competition ‘A positive frame of mind’ made good use of their prizes in February spending a day learning advanced tools of the trade with Tony Marsh.

The competition attracted entries from all over Scotland with hosting organisations from the Highlands to Lanarkshire joining forces with the National campaign. A judging panel made up of Tony Marsh, Mary Weir (‘see me’ Management Group) and Belinda Arthur (Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival) had a tough job in deciding the three overall winners.

This year’s winners were: Malcolm Smail for ‘Focus on the Present’ in the ‘Mentally Positive’ category, which illustrated positive mental health and recovery. The ‘Through Thick and Thin’ category was won by Terence Chan for his photograph ‘Claire and Sarah’ and which portrayed the support that people experiencing mental health problems receive from family and friends. The ‘People’s Choice’ category which was voted for by members of the public on the ‘see me’ website, was won by Tommy Black for ‘Canoe’. All enjoyed their prize day in Edinburgh.

Over 1000 entries from throughout Scotland were received for the competition and we will be launching the 2009 competition before the summer.

'see me' is currently recruiting local area hosts for the 2009 Photo Competition.
The role of the host is to hold a local photography competition, supported by the national campaign. We will provide you with categories for entry, resources, publicity, prizes and funding. All you have to do is collect and display entries, organise the voting/judging of the winners and encourage people to enter! Local winners will then form the national final on the 'see me' website.

Feedback from last year's hosts were very positive and we would like to get more local areas and organisations on board for 2009.

For more information contact fiona.tannock@seemescotland.org

‘see me’ down under

‘see me’s Campaign Director was delighted to be able to attend this year’s International Initiative for Mental Health Leadership (IIMHL) exchange based in Auckland and Brisbane, this March.

"New Zealand’s anti-stigma campaign ‘Like Minds Like Mine’ has been going five years longer than ‘see me’ and so they have much to teach us," said Suzie Vestri, 'they also think that they can learn from aspects of our approach, and so having the chance to spend ‘face to face’ time with them, as well as to learn a lot from other anti-stigma champions from around the world, was a real blessing.

"We had quite a small exchange group, some of whom are pictured above, and had time to visit several Like Minds projects around Auckland, including hearing about specific work with Pacific and Chinese communities which will definitely help to shape our work. The highlight for many of us was our visit to a consumer owned and led business which provides training and speakers for employers in the Auckland area.

"We were made very welcome everywhere we went with some very moving traditional Maori hospitality. The learning for ‘see me’ has been tremendous and we’re all looking forward to putting our new ideas into practice. The exchange group will carry on meeting (albeit by video-conference) in the run up to our next exchange in 2010."

From Australia, Canada, Nunavut, the US, New Zealand and Scotland – everyone was united in working to achieve common goals.

As usual, ‘see me’ seized every chance to talk about our campaign. While attending the main IIMHL conference in Brisbane, Suzie spoke at Queensland Alliance’s Global Madness Lunch (with a sneak appearance on the TV news), and then took part in a lively and positive radio panel discussion on the ABC.

Who else was down under?

Stigma wasn’t the only exchange on offer at IIMHL this year. There was a good representation from Scotland and we’ve asked three attendees to give us their impressions ‘in their own words’ below:

Shaun McNeil: I was privileged to have the opportunity to participate in the IIMHL Exchange/Network Meeting in New Zealand and Australia this year.

My host was Gary Platz, Strategic Advisor/ Service User Leader and the organisation which employs him, Wellink, based in Wellington, New Zealand. It is a voluntary sector organisation which provides Support, Respite, Peer Services, Employment Support, Housing Options, a Crisis Service and a Peer-run Warmline (Telephone Helpline).

Following this I met many inspirational and interesting people at the IIMHL Network meeting in Brisbane, Australia; some old friends, some new acquaintances.

To finish my trip, myself and other international service user leaders helped people from Queensland to set up a State-wide service user Forum.

Lorraine Nicholson: A year ago I was confined by severe depression to staring at four corners of a room. A year on and I find myself flying across the globe, destination New Zealand and Australia, to represent my country at an international mental health leadership conference.

As an artist and peer support graduate seeking a career in this area, I chose to visit an art project in Dunedin, New Zealand called “Artsenta” and was inspired by what was achievable in terms of the range of talents on show which only serves to confirm: give people the right environment and they will grow.

From the start 22 years ago Artsenta has had a clear mission: Art for art’s sake. There is no medicalisation of people through diagnosis, no medical notes, no labels, just human beings with an innate need to create and express themselves. What could be simpler and more effective? Around 25-30 people drop in every day and the peer support is tangible.

An inspiring idea for me was the community radio station which provides people the opportunity to share their talents with others and importantly to communicate with the outside world. Poetry readings and songs lyrics inspire and inform others. Maybe we should explore this more fully in Scotland….

Chris Evans: Chris Evans is currently HUG’s representative on the 'see me' management group. She was one of the successful applicants from VOX to gain a place at the IIMHL.

“To receive the news that I’d been successful eight months after being in hospital on a section was amazing. Prior to the conference itself, I was paired with Desley Casey, who manages CAN (mental health) inc. based in Manly, just north of Sydney. We went to meet with staff and consumers for a BBQ lunch. The conversation soon got round to services and support available. I was particularly interested in finding out about how their peer support works. Having spoken openly to the group about my own experiences, I asked about stigma and discrimination in Australia. I got the impression that there would have been a great reluctance to speak outside the safe group environment. There was an awareness of the anti-stigma campaign in New Zealand.

“At the conference itself, the round table discussion about peer support was enlightening. It was really good to learn and meet with people leading this work in other countries. Everyone was willing to talk and listen. The overall theme of the conference was inclusion – which can only be achieved once stigma/discrimination is eliminated!

“It was hot, sunny and exhausting – but I would not have missed it for the world. The next conference is in Ireland 2010 – I hope to see you there!”

‘see me in Dundee’

It was back to our roots for ‘see me’ at its first Regional Meeting in Dundee at the start of April. A new programme of quarterly meetings across Scotland is aimed specifically at bringing together people with lived experience to feedback on and give ideas to the ‘see me’ campaign, as well as sharing information about local work which aims to reduce stigma.

Representatives from three local organisations: Dundee Association for Mental health (DAMH), the Hearing Voices Network and Augment, from Arbroath, all showed and discussed DVDs of recent work and these will all be available for viewing on the ‘see me' website.

"Dundee was one of the many places to provide insight into what was needed from a Scottish anti-stigma campaign, before we even launched – and it was the local Hearing Voices Network that came up with the name ‘see me’, so it seemed like a great place to kick off our quarterly Regional Meetings," commented Suzie Vestri, Campaign Director.

The next meeting will be held in Edinburgh in early June. Invitations will be sent to local groups - any individual from Edinburgh and the Lothians who would like to be kept informed should visit the ‘see me’ website and click on Pledge Me!

‘see me’ on the world wide web

Many of you will have had the chance by now to visit our ‘new’ website launched last autumn. If you haven’t yet – then you should! It’s easier to navigate and divided into clear sections.

You also have the chance to Pledge individual support for the ‘see me’ campaign  and to vote on the issues of the day, download ads, facts and resources for free, order free materials and listen to people talking about their own experiences.

You can also sign up to receive updates from ‘see me’ by signing up to our RSS feed (you’ll get these as soon as we put them on to the website).

What is RSS?

RSS feeds enable you to get update notifications delivered directly to your desktop, through the news aggregator software program of your choice (If you use internet Explorer 7 then it’s built in, but there are number of other RSS readers out there). RSS is convenient because you can subscribe to feeds from several Internet sites and automatically pull together headlines from all the sources into one list. This lets you quickly browse the list of new content without visiting each site.
 

	To subscribe to a site’s RSS feed you simply click on icons like these and the feed is added to the “feeds” section of your browser.

And ‘see me’ recently launched its own Group on social networking site Facebook. If you’re already on Facebook then it’s easy to join ‘see me’. Click on Groups and search for ‘see me’, then click on Join This Group. Or you can find the group online at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=38173671568

Any member of the group can post stories, pictures and links to items of interest. The more the better! Or, if you fancy helping to run this group, let us know!

Pledge News

It has been a busy time for the ‘see me’ Pledge with some great new sign-ups in recent months. At a Burns Lunch in Fife at the end of January, Express Group (Fife) Ltd signed up to the Pledge amidst haggis and song, while in Ayrshire & Arran, the following 9 organisations,

• Access to Employment Ayr
• Alex Begg and Co.
• Community Housing Advocacy Project
• Diageo Gobal Supply – Kilmarnock
• New Horizons Creative Solutions
• North Ayrshire Womens Aid
• Radio City Association
• Specialcats of Ayr
• Yipworld.com

all signed up at an event held at the Park Hotel in Kilmarnock, joined by previous Pledge signatories, Kilmarnock FC.

The City of Edinburgh Council became one of 10 local authorities to sign up to support the campaign at a meeting held in the City Chambers in February. Council leader Jenny Dawe is pictured on the right.

Our biggest Pledge event ever was held in April in Lanarkshire, where 42 schools made public their commitment to supporting the campaign at an event held at Motherwell Football Club, again previous signatories to the ‘see me’ Pledge. School representatives heard from a range of speakers, made their individual Pledges and then joined forces for a group photo below.

If you want to know if your organisation has signed up to the ‘see me’ Pledge yet, or want to view the list of all Lanarkshire school signatories, visit our website at http://www.seemescotland.org.uk/whossupportingseeme/viewpledgesignatories

'see me' news

Fife
As part of its' continued commitment, the Fife Anti-Stigma Group held the area's first Anti-Stigma Week, in November 2008. Targeting workplaces and young people, campaign materials including posters, fact-sheets on mental illness and Pledge information were distributed throughout Fife to raise awareness of the national campaign.

Dumfries and Galloway
‘see me’ has sponsored Newton Stewart Football Club in Dumfries and Galloway for the second year running. The club’s strips and tracksuits sport the ‘see me’ logo to show their continued support for raising awareness of challenging stigma.

The other G9
As part of their commitment to the ‘see me’ Pledge, the Forth Valley ‘G9 Group’ jointly-funded a local advertising campaign in October. Local radio advertising, billboards and press adverts coincided with Scottish Mental Health Week and raised awareness amongst the Forth Valley public of the local support for the campaign.

Toolkit
The ‘see me’ toolkit will be launched at the Edinburgh Regional Meeting in June. The toolkit will provide the tools and resources for local organisations and individuals to carry out anti-stigma activities. Watch out for updates on www.seemescotland.org.uk

A new agency for ‘see me’
After over five years working with The Gate and Smarts, ‘see me’ will be switching to The Leith Agency from April. We’ll still be able to offer PR support to local groups taking part in ‘see me’ activity, so keep your ideas coming. Thanks to the staff at The Gate and SMARTS for all their passion and commitment to the campaign.

Stop Press?
‘see me’ will shortly be launching its first ever ‘state of the media’ report – showing exactly how the press covers mental health, whether things are changing (and how) and what still needs to be done.

Pledge yourself!
Have you pledged your support for ‘see me’ yet? When you visit http://seemescotland.org.uk/showyoursupport/pledgeme you’re joining a growing movement of people across Scotland and beyond who are saying that enough is enough and we need to end the stigma and discrimination of mental ill-health NOW. In return for your pledge of support you’ll be invited to campaign meetings, receive our newsletter and also any samples of campaign materials. Don’t just Pledge Yourself – get other people to Pledge Up too!

Contact Works

One of the things we DO know at ‘see me’ is that direct contact between people with and without mental ill-health – or hearing first hand from someone who can talk about their own illness, recovery, stigma and support – makes a MASSIVE difference in people’s attitudes.

Since the start of the campaign, ‘see me' has run a media volunteer programme where individuals are recruited, trained and supported to tell the media about their own experience. Before the launch of ‘see me’, stories in the press about mental health almost never included the voice of those with lived experience. Now it’s much more common to hear about mental ill-health, stigma and support first hand – from those who’ve been at the sharp end. The programme has been so successful that many other organisations are now copying what ‘see me’ started!

However there are also other ways to hear about mental health first hand. ‘see me’ is approached all the time by organisations asking us to speak about mental ill-health and the campaign. So much so that we can’t meet everyone’s requests and sometimes have to turn people down.

In order to change all that, ‘see me’ has just launched a pilot ‘speakers bureau’. Starting in Edinburgh, we’ve recruited and trained a pool of fantastic volunteer speakers who are now available to speak about their own experiences and about ‘see me’.

If you need a speaker for your organisation, workplace, school, guild or club - and you’re based in Edinburgh or the Lothians, why don’t you contact us and give our new pool of speakers some practice! Like it says above, we know that contact works.

Contact info@seemescotland.org with your request.

Plus ‘see me’ moves home

After several years of boiling to death and tripping over boxes of posters, we have found a new office not far away from our old home. We can now be found at 1/3, Great Michael House, 14 Links Place, Leith, Edinburgh EH6 7EZ Tel: 0131 554 0218 and Fax: 0131 553 3217. Our website www.seemescotland.org.uk and email address info@seemscotland.org remain the same. Look us up on Google Street View.