Practitioner :
Inspired Youth
Session Aims:
- Review Campaign Progress
- Explore wider campaign themes
- Devise some 'key moments' to show stigma
For today's session we welcomed Dan Blackman who is a Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner in the Stockton area. As we widened our scope to look at national campaign themes and the effects of stigma, Dan's insights from a clinical perspective were a really useful addition to the discussions.
We began the session by reviewing our progress along the campaign lifecycle and our reflections of the campaign so far. We also took some time to read Jen Syrkiewicz' BLOG entry following last week's session.
Last week Jen helped us look at the conflict between talents, individuality & skills and the group's experience of stigma. This led us nicely into looking more closely at public attitudes to mental illness. We spread out sheets of paper over the tables each with a number or % on them, these numbers were the answers to a series of statements relating to public attitudes. The statements were taken from a report published by the Department of Health called "Attitudes to Mental Illness 2008 Research Report". The group had to debate the answers and match the figures to the statements.
Here are the statements:
- 12% of people agreed with the statement
- Tolerant Attitudes are in decline
- 70% agree that the best therapy for many people with mental illness is to be part of a normal community
- 63% Feel that people with mental illness should have the same rights to a job as anyone else
- 17% agreed that “there is something about people with mental illness which makes it easy to tell them from normal people”
- The youngest age group (16 to 34) had the most negative attitudes
- 14% responded correctly that 1 in 4 people have experience of a mental health problem
Once we had discussed the scale of the problem the group began to look at the affects that stigma can have on an individual. Dan Blackman helped the group to consider the effects that their experiences of stigma may have had.
After a while we began to see a cycle forming where one element would lead to further impact elsewhere in the cycle and so it would continue. It was clear that the stigma related mental illness was making the problem worse for those who were living with the symptoms and effects. It made clear how important our job had become in order to tackle some of these elements in the local community.
We then turned our attention to media processes and how to use media to tackle stigma. First we looked at an example of a film designed to address the stigma of mental health.
We then looked at examples of Ciara Leeming's documentary work using still images and recorded narratives.
We discussed a very simple three stage process by which we can devise a piece of media to do a job. The process is based on advertising principles and works by distilling ideas down to key moments which can capture the audience.
We looked at examples of different adverts that use key moments of humour, shock and intrigue to deliver powerful messages to the audience. The best example is this advert for Nike Basketball.
Not only does it play on stereotypes and the sense of brand belonging but it also challenges the judgements and preconceptions of the viewer.
Using the three stage principle, thinking about the affects of stigma & the idea of individual talents and keeping in mind the potential of the end product the group began to devise some key moments of their own. The key moments would illustrate the things they wrote about last week with Jen and will give us material and ideas for the next sessions.
Being Accused of Being Drunk:
Being Told Where to Go:
Shame on You:
Social Scene:
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