That Old Chestnut
There are a few campaigns that seem to crop up everywhere. It's important to learn from previous campaigns to make your campaign as successful as possible.
Stigmatising adverts or newspaper coverage
Advertisers and journalists often do not understand mental illness and this sometimes results in references to mental illness which are inaccurate and offensive. It is important to challenge advertisers and journalists whenever this occurs – their attitude may not change the first time they are challenged about this, but over time things will change. And sometimes it works the first time!
Write to the company or journalist concerned. Tell them why their portrayal is inaccurate. Tell them how many people experience mental illness in the UK – they will be worried about potentially losing all these people as customers or readers. Point out that carers too and other people with knowledge of mental illness will
also be offended.
Keep your communications short. The shorter your letter or email is, the better the chances that they will read all of it. If possible, email the company. Send a copy of your letter or email to friends who are sympathetic and ask them to contact the company or journalist too. If they are customers of the company, readers of the newspaper, or viewers of the programme, they should say so.
Do not be too aggressive in your letter or email. You want the company/journalist to listen to you, so don’t start off on the wrong foot. Give them information, don’t
give them grief.
This approach is effective because it works from the companies’ and journalists’ viewpoint. What do they want? Customers and readers/viewers. What are you telling them? That this way, they will lose customers and readers/viewers.
Successful campaigning against stigmatising adverts
In December 2005, a commercial company ran a series of pre Christmas advertisements, one of which was deeply offensive to people with mental illness and their carers. Rethink found the contact details for the marketing director of the company, wrote an email to him about the advertisements. We explained how many people in the UK have experienced psychosis and how many people care for someone with psychosis and the impact of prejudice and discrimination on them. The company replied and said they would not run a similar advertisement again. A great success for a minimal effort!
Funding cuts
Mental health services are often seen as the last in a long list of priorities when there are cuts to be made to funding. But proposed budget cuts can be fought and stopped.
The key is to find out about proposed cuts as early as possible. It’s much harder to change a health trust’s or local authority’s budget at the last minute. Early on in the budget process, money can be moved from one area to another.
It’s a good idea to compare what is being proposed in your locality with what Government guidelines recommend.
You could also organise a public meeting with people who use the service and health trust managers or councilors and officials from the local authority. People need to see what an impact the service is having on people’s real lives. In the abstract, it can be easy to dismiss so-called ‘soft’ services such as befriending services if people do not have a real understanding of what they do.
Train service users and carers to speak to decision-makers and the media and explain their experiences.
If service users and carers do not wish to attend such a meeting or do not feel confident enough to do so, ask people to write about their experience of the service and the impact on their lives.
Ask service users and carers at the service to write to their local councilors about their experiences. Ask other people to do the same.
Try and find out relevant statistics about the people using the service. How many people at the service have no carer or no other support in the community? What
successes has the service had?
Meet with those who make decisions about the funding. Take a service user or carer with you to meet them.
Send a briefing about the closure to influential people. Include quotes from people using the service, but only two or three at most.
Organise some kind of protest, for which you can get media coverage.
Mental health services are seen as a soft touch – people expect that service users will not protest about service closures, that people will not be organised enough to campaign in a strategic fashion.
NIMBY (Not in my backyard)
Sometimes a new service is planned and funding granted, but then local opposition to it mounts. This is known as a NIMBY case – i.e. ‘not in my backyard’.
If you know of plans to start a new service, offer to help in gaining public acceptance. It is no good waiting for opposition to mount – you have to be proactive and gain local support for the service.
If you do nothing, it is likely that once the proposals become public, people may perceive that the proposals were shrouded in secrecy and presume that they are
controversial. So you need to be open from the beginning.
How do you do this?
Use the media to promote better attitudes to mental health. Try and place feature articles about individuals with mental health problems. You can do this before plans for the new service are announced.
Send information to local residents about the new service through leafleting. Include statements from people with mental illness, explaining why the service is needed. Send this out just as the plans are being made known to the public.
Go door-knocking in the local area and ask residents about their views as soon as possible after the announcement. If you are able to allay their fears and concerns at this point, the momentum for opposition may be lost.
Hold a public meeting to explain to local residents what the purpose of the new service is. Ask local service users and carers to attend and explain why the service is needed and what their experiences are. The more contact there is between service users and local residents, the more likely it is that people will support the idea of a new service.
Stress the idea that this is a health service. It will help members of the community, not people from ‘outside’. Talk about local job opportunities and investment in
the community.
Meet with local residents who are opposed to the service and listen to their concerns. Often they will be reassured by the facts as long as they feel people are taking their feelings seriously and responding.
Proposing a new service
Certain service types may be lacking in your area. Is there a befriending service, for example, or a crisis house?
Persuading funders of the need for such a service will take a long time – this is not a campaign which can be won overnight.
First you need to find out about other places which have such a service. Are there any evaluations of their success which you can quote? Would such a service be in line with national government guidance on what health trusts should provide?
You also need to find service users and carers who say that there is a need for such a service. What are the consequences of not having one? What outcomes could such a service achieve?
Make contact with service users and carers who sit on the Local Implementation Team. Are they convinced of the need for this service? Will they become advocates for your change?
If possible, arrange from Health Trust managers to visit this kind of service in another area. Make them see the benefits. Make sure a service user or carer from your area accompanies them so that he or she can show enthusiasm for the project and talk about the benefits that access to such a service would have.
Successful campaigning for a new service
A Rethink member of staff found out that her local Trust was not prioritising carers services. She and another carer were on the Local Implementation Team and after many months of negotiating managed to get carers services recognised as a priority. Later, the Trust decided that due to its financial difficulties, it would not
commission the services the Local Implementation Team wanted. But these two ladies would not give up and approached the Director of Commissioning directly and persuaded other carers to email and write to him. They rallied support from mental health organisations in the area, whether voluntary sector or professional.
The Trust agreed to review the situation and they continued putting pressure on the Trust during this period through contacts with carers. Finally, they arranged a meeting between the Trust management and local carers, so that they could explain what their needs were and why a new service was essential.
Some carers needed some training and some confidence-building exercises before this meeting. The meeting was highly successful and the Trust management were convinced of the need for this new service and it went ahead.
Your story could be ‘why does x town have this service and not our town?’ Journalists like stories which compare one place with another as they seem relevant to the local community and present an obvious contrast.
