So you want to change the world?

“You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world”

Foreword

As the Beatles’ lyrics above suggest, everyone has ideas about how to make the world a better place. They might want to protect the environment better, eradicate world hunger or end cruelty to animals – the list of changes we would all like to make is almost endless.

Having said that, the case for a change in mental health is overwhelming. For generations, people with severe mental illness have been denied fundamental
rights, and now receive lower quality health services than people with other health problems; experience more discrimination; and have a lower quality of life than
the average person in Britain.

This toolkit is here to help anyone who wants to campaign locally for a better life for people with mental illness. No-one wants to spend their time and energy trying to make change unless they can see real results. We hope this toolkit will help Rethink campaign volunteers, Rethink groups, e-campaigners, activists and others turn their ideas for a better world into real change on the ground.

Rethink has many years experience of campaigning for the rights of people affected by mental illness and many successes under our belt. We have learnt a lot of lessons and these are incorporated into the advice we have given people here.

We hope this toolkit will help all of you who give up your time and use your energy to campaign for the rights of people affected by severe mental illness.

Best wishes

Cliff Prior
Chief Executive, Rethink

Bob Banner
 Chair, Rethink

About this guide

This guide is here to help you devise and run successful local campaigns. It will: 

  • Explain how to decide what to campaign for and what your aims and objectives are
  • Help you pinpoint who has the power to make the change you want
  • Provide advice on how to devise a plan for your campaign, using ‘backwards planning’
  • Outline the principles of persuading people to make a change
  • Go through the practicalities of persuasion
  • Give you some basic facts about mental illness and signpost you to websites and people to talk to
  • Explain how to find ‘case studies’, to make your campaign more persuasive
  • Explain how to involve the media
  • Give advice on a few ‘classic’ campaigns
  • Highlight some pitfalls to be avoided
  • Explain how to evaluate your campaign
  • Give you tools to use to plan your campaign
  • Tell you where to go for further information.

We hope this guide will be informative and fun to use. If you have any campaigns experiences that you think others could learn from, please let us know!