Steve’s Blog – New Horizons
The consultation, New Horizons, has closed. I hope you had a chance to have your say. On the whole I felt it was indeed taking a new, more refreshing approach, but I feel it may have missed the crux, the reality of truly understanding people with mental health problems as human as all of us, what makes up the whole of our lives, our inner landscape, our aspirations, hopes and fears.
Here’s a few thoughts I offered…
Mental health should no longer be marginalised but should be mainstream, so that we all recognise that we have shifting states of mental health & vulnerabilities. Emphasis should be placed on dispelling stigma
Where did that word ‘personalisation’ come from, which is used throughout the document? It seems to be taking hold. Why can’t we say something like:
There needs to be a focus on the individual recognising that we all have different concerns and experiences.
In terms of mental health services, there needs to be a variety of options - a menu of services - some will suit and help certain individuals and not others (e.g. group therapy, individual exercises, group work, tai chi, and others which recognise value of the arts in healing).
We need to recognise that mental health policy is crucially linked to other policies and actions, for example on poverty and inequalities.
And Rethink of course has said much more, and driven home much more focus.
Let’s hope that our new horizons, leading us through the cycle of our lives, will indeed discover new worlds, new hopes, and enable us all to reach our full potential.
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