Tackling the Stigma of Mental Health

Leah Fletcher and Melissa Stamp

We were asked to create a DVD around mental health stigma to be shown around schools and possibly youth clubs in order to tackle the stigma that is around mental health.

In order to do the DVD we needed some extra information and help, so we met with the NHS mental health experts and they told us some facts and statistics about mental health.

We also went to a meeting in Birmingham as part of the national pilot of tackling the stigma of mental health.  We then had a meeting where we met a lady with bipolar who told us about her illness and gave us her stages of how she felt and we felt it was very informative.  This gave us a lot of help and we went on to plan the DVD, arranging a meeting to talk about what we thought were the main issues around mental health stigma.  

Then between us we picked a topic per pair to work on the storyboard and getting on with the filming.  It was really fun and everyone in the group enjoyed it.

Just after the filming, another lady came in to film us when she asked us questions about how we found the DVD filming and asked us what kind of things we learnt, which will go on to create another national DVD.  

In addition to this work, we have also ran an Agenda Day in a comprehensive school with 60 13-14 year olds to find out their views on mental health and stigma.  We have recently given a presentation about our work and research and shown a section of the DVD at a conference organised by the Centre for Social Justice and Community Action at Durham University.

"The concept of young people led research frightens some adults.  The Agenda Day model described by the young people at the conference is a really good research model for generating the views of young people without the danger of adult influence.  There are issues raised in the report that may have not been raised through other research approaches."

- Professor Rachel Pain, Department of Geography, Durham University