This Mental Health Awareness Week we spoke Alexa Knight, Director of England at the Mental Health Foundation, about what the foundation does and her views on mental health and the arts.
Hi, Alexa! What is Mental Health Awareness Week all about?
Mental Health Awareness Week happens every May, and the purpose of the week is really to encourage conversation about people's mental health.
I think over the last 10 years or so we've seen an absolute transformation in how people think and feel and talk about mental health, but we know that, actually, people still feel there's a real barrier to talking about their own mental health and to reaching out and asking for support when they need it. So I think anything that can be done to de-stigmatize issues around mental health has got to be a good thing.
So what’s happening this Mental Health Awareness Week to encourage those conversations?
This year we are focusing on the theme of community, because community can be a hugely protective factor for people's mental health. What we want to do is to encourage a conversation about what community is, how it can help, and encourage people to get involved in community in different ways.
We'll be highlighting some of the roles that community plays in our own work; we facilitate community-based programs around young parents, for example, and connect them and help them support each other. We also work with students at colleges and at universities offering peer support when they're going through a tricky time. We've got community work focused on young boys in secondary school who are going through difficult times, encouraging them to vocalise their own feelings and help each other. But we'll also be talking to the general public about how they can get involved; what sorts of communities they might find helpful and how they can go about finding them.
What are your thoughts on the representation of mental health and mental illness in the arts and in the media?
Mental health has got a sort of checkered history in terms of how it's represented in the media in various ways; for a long time it was very much demonised - it was othered - whereas, actually, we all have mental health; we all have times where we feel stressed.
There have been some really interesting treatments of mental health and stress and of other pressures in the arts world over recent years. I'm thinking particularly about theatre…things like For Black Boys…, which was a phenomenal play that brought to the fore some really difficult issues about mental health in the black community. [Another example is] People, Places and Things, which covered addiction in a really powerful and moving way. So I think the arts have enormous potential to open up conversations about mental health. As well as being, you know, one of those interests that people can really enrich people's lives and bring people together - coming back to that theme of community, I think the arts have a huge role to play.
I think creativity is really important in protecting people's mental health, and it can be helpful for lots of people. We use it ourselves in our programmes as part of the mechanism for helping people express themselves and support their mental health.
I think what Adolescence did really well was it shone a light on an issue that teenagers in particular are facing that perhaps older people, parents in particular, are not very aware of - some of the pressures that they see online. I think that's the flip side to community, because while communities can be really supportive and welcome in places - in real life and online - they can also have their harmful sites as well. Obviously online, in particular, there are some really dangerous and harmful sites and influences that children can struggle to know how to deal with. So I think that particular programme really helped to bring that to the fore in a way that was probably a helpful thing in getting conversations started.
I think where we struggle is: it's fine to raise awareness of these things, but parents don't necessarily know what to do next if they're concerned about their children.
So [this week] we'll be putting out hints and tips for parents, particularly those worried about teenagers on the online space and how to open up that conversation with kids; what to look out for, questions that we should all ask ourselves about how our communities, online and offline, are making us feel, whether they make us feel happy and confident and less stressed, or actually if they're having a harmful impact.
What do you want people to get out of Mental Health Awareness Week?
I would say [to people]: use it as that nudge that you might need to either do something for your own mental health - join a running group, go and see a play, hook up with a friend that you have been meaning to get in touch with - or reach out to somebody that you're worried about in your community. Maybe just start a conversation with them, [to] see how they're doing. Just use it as that prompt to reach out and make the community that you're part of be a better place.
There'll be all sorts of links on our website telling people how to get involved and it might seem like you know finding a community is a difficult thing but actually most of us are members of a community in one way or another. It might be a place-based community to deal with where you live or where you work or where your kids go to school. It might be an interest group; either a sport or a cultural interest group. if you find yourself geographically isolated from people who you think are part of your community, then finding an online community can be enormously helpful.
It can also be things like just being kind to people on your street or telling one of your co-workers how much you've appreciated something they've done all kinds of ways to get involved in community which we'll be pointing to you with hints and tips.
So what is the website?
It is mentalhealth.org.uk. Nicely easy to remember!