A GROUNDBREAKING grassroots mental health project is set to launch on Wednesday.
Billed as a 'New Script for Mental Health', the project will see author Louise Kennedy join mental health activists, practitioners and others in the MAC to promote and facilitate conversations across society around what a better approach to mental health could look like, and in turn, to make that collective vision a reality.
The group will be led by people with lived experience of trauma and who, for over a decade, have spearheaded campaigns to address systemic failures in the existing mental health system.
The group say that the recent Covid pandemic has only deepened a pre-existing mental health crisis with rates of mental ill-health in the North 25 per cent higher than in England and prescribing rates for anti-depressants have increased by approximately four per cent year on year, yet at the same time, GP practices have fewer in-house counsellors than pre-Covid.
Drawing on personal experience, Louise Kennedy explained why she is supporting New Script for Mental Health.
"A last-minute decision to join a writing group did more to improve my mental health than years of taking anti-depressants," she said.
"The 'here's a prescription, away you go' approach is not enough and this campaign for 'A New Script' is timely and vital."
Dr Dave Rogers, a member of Psychologists for Social Change, added his support to therapeutic approaches to mental health that empower individuals and communities to take charge of their own stories.
"Listening to a great story changes how we see the world, how we feel about ourselves and our future," he said. "But all too often we are captivated by powerful, selfish and narrow-minded voices that thrive on inequality and discrimination.
"This campaign will empower communities to write their own scripts, promoting solidarity and justice. Equality is the best therapy."
Magz Gibney, activist and writer, outlined her personal vision for a New Script for Mental Health: "The script needs to be rewritten to include proper access to therapy, social prescribing, creative arts, sport, gardening, activism and social change.
"Before writing the script time, connection, humanity and choice need to be nurtured so that may find our voice and the courage to tell our unspoken stories to each other as fellow human beings without fear of rejection or judgement.
"They say it takes a whole community to raise a child, well I think it takes a whole community to hold a person in distress in the ways they need to recover and maybe even find enough hope and love in themselves and the world around them that they flourish."
'A New Script for Mental Health' will launch in the MAC on 1 February between 11am and 1pm.
