Wendy Halliday Appointed See Me Director

Posted by See Me, 3 April 2020

See Me and our managing partners, SAMH, the Mental Health Foundation and the Scottish Government, are delighted to announce that Wendy Halliday has been appointed as our new director.

Wendy has been at See Me since 2017, recently acting as the interim director, leading on our It Starts With You event, while helping to shape the future of the programme.

Before taking on the interim role Wendy was See Me’s assistant director of programmes. In that role she led the organisations response to human rights and oversaw our Health and Social Care, Workplace, Education and Young People’s teams, as well our Social Movement team. In this post she experienced the power that lived experience brings in challenging assumptions, prejudice and behaviours around mental health. She learned more about the importance of creating the best conditions and environments for people to act differently.

Wendy has over 30 years experience working in public health. Before joining See Me she was at Health Scotland where much of her work focused on mental health and health improvement. There she influenced change within different  organisations, settings, and services, to improve wellbeing, reduce discrimination and inequality, to improve people’s health. 

On taking on the role as See Me director she said: “I feel privileged to have been appointed to lead See Me. It is a fantastic programme with committed staff, volunteers and partners who are all incredibly passionate about making a difference.  See Me has the potential to make an even greater change across Scotland by working alongside others, by being led by people’s real experiences of stigma and discrimination and by creating a larger more influential social movement.  

“I want to work with others to change attitudes, behaviours and cultures across the system and improve the lives of people with mental health problems.  In this role I can apply all that I’ve learned so far, develop my skills and lead the programme to new exciting opportunities and challenges.   

“We are living in unprecedented circumstances where both the short and longer term impact on people’s mental health is unknown. People across all walks of life are being challenged to live, work and connect in different ways.  The need for the programme has never been greater:  to challenge the stigma that will get in the way of people seeking and getting help, to empower people to reach out when they or a friend, colleague or family members are struggling and work to reduce the impact of inequalities people experience as a result of poor mental health.”