MHP diary
By Taimi Allan, Team Leader, Like Minds, Like Mine, Mind and Body Consultants Ltd
Introduction
Meeting one
Meeting two
Meeting three
Meeting four
Meeting five
Contact details
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Introduction
Mind and Body Consultants Ltd is one of four providers working in the Auckland are to deliver the Ministry of Health's Like Minds, Like Mine programme. As team leader, Taimi oversees and carries out a variety of Like Minds projects, including workshops, grants, and media work.
Prior to joining Mind and Body, Taimi was the owner/director of a successful catering company and a music school and won Employee of the Year with her previous employer for saving someone's life at work. Taimi says however, that by far her greatest achievement was successfully managing her own mental illness to become completely drug-free.
Meeting one
Today I met with a journalist from the Western Leader (at my home - for the "local" angle) and another journalist from the Sunday News at a café. The purpose of both meetings was to promote the Like Minds, Like Mine programme, and in particular Mind and Body's 2010 RETHiNK grant.
Setting up these meetings required quite a lot of research and preparation to find an angle that suited each newspaper. I wrote press releases for each publication to spark interest and looked for particular journalists at the Western Leader and the Sunday News that would intelligently and intuitively report the Like Minds/RETHiNK grant goals without adding stigma.
I talked to the journalists a bit about my own story to make it interesting and engaging. It is balancing this story in a way that gets the key messages across - in this case "normalisation" of the experience of mental illness, the reality of recovery and finding value in experience through creative outlets - without opening yourself to misinterpretation or exploitation that is the tricky bit.
By discussing the grant, last years recipients, and parts of my own journey, both journalists were interested enough to write and publish an article. Each took a different angle to appeal to their readership.
I think the most challenging aspect of talking to media is personal vulnerability. How much do you share of yourself? There is also the very real fear of being misquoted, taken out of context or exploited, hence the importance of being well-prepared, knowing what angles would interest them, setting personal boundaries and pre-empting their questions.
Continuing to build respectful partnerships with the media is important so that we have multiple avenues with which to deliver our key messages as well as celebrate successes.
Both the Western Leader and Sunday News are keen on doing a follow up article on the recipients of a RETHiNK grant, as well as a possible further promotion during Mental Health Awareness Week in October. One of the journalists in particular is interested in any articles regarding mental health or mental illness so they can portray a more truthful representation of mental health issues, and helps dissolve myths often perpetuated by the media.
Meeting two
We (myself and Miriam, Mind and Body's Like Minds mental health promoter) had meetings with a large variety of potential RETHiNK grant applicants to listen to their innovative ideas on how they might like to tackle stigma and discrimination creatively. In some cases we visited them to see how their existing projects might fit into the RETHiNK Framework.
The 2010 RETHiNK grant offers a total pool of $15,000 for projects that take an innovative or creative approach to helping the Aucklanders "re-think" the way they look at mental illness. Projects that specifically seek to challenge myths, stereotypes or stigmatising attitudes are favoured and we offer to mentor all potential applicants. Our meetings with potential applicants help them finetune their goals and put them in touch with collaborators who can help realise their project by offering them financial, industry or experientially based advice.
Applicants shared their innovative ideas with us and we advised how they might make their applications stronger by concentrating on the projects strengths, and helped applicants source advice or information on their weaker points. We also asked them to include Mental Health Awareness Week as one of their goals, as it is a fantastic opportunity to celebrate the value in experience and to raise awareness in a creative way. Applicants always come away feeling positive about their abilities and the flexibility of the process, and we are inspired and excited about the range and initiative of their ideas. Many applicants are pleasantly surprised by how easy we make it to align their creative ideas to the Like Minds, Like Mine message.
One of the most challenging decisions is opening up the grants to the wider public and people without experience of mental illness. But I have been touched by the number of enlightened people who are passionate about being part of social change, collaborating and gaining a deeper understanding from those with personal experience, and making a positive difference to reduce stigma and discrimination.
After applications close, we make sure all applications fulfil the guidelines. Then an independent panel made up of talented professionals from differing backgrounds and cultures (who do have a personal experience of mental illness) chose the recipients. Winners are announced on the 28th of May, and then the fun part of watching these projects develop starts!
Meeting three
Today I met with clinical and consumer representatives of the Auckland District Health Board to discuss possible workshop formats and past few months. We are proud of the respectful relationships we have built with certain staff DHB and we discussed how we might be able to tailor a package to suit their needs.
Our aim is to create a workshop package for mental health and general health providers. The most challenging aspect of designing a package like this is finding an incentive for clinicians to attend the training while meeting their individual and professional needs.
We discussed what information we had, the workshops we are currently offering, and what information and perspectives DHB staff are requesting from us and why. We talked about how we might communicate the Like Minds message to clinicians, who are time-poor and ‘expertise-rich', in a way that engages and interests them as well as finding and explaining the professional development value.
So far, clinicians have said they are interested in presentations about personal stories of recovery from particular diagnoses, consumer perspectives on pharmacology, and compassion fatigue. They also want to explore the value experience vs. pathology in individual modules that suit the time they have available.
Miriam is putting together an anonymous clinicians survey, which will be distributed through our clinical champions (after ethics sign off) so we can get a full perspective into their perceived needs.
We agreed that there must be a respectful balance of accepting some shortcomings of time constraints and expecting commitment. We also agreed that our continuing partnership with the DHB's Consumer Advisor team was important to helping maintain these relationships, and should include joint-presentations and training.
We will meet as often as necessary with partners and allies of this project until we have a package ready to pilot. We are planning to run our first pilot workshop with ADHB in August.
Meeting four
Today's schedule included updating my First Aid certificate, meeting with Boris Sokratov from Mental Health Foundation about the Nutters Club and having dinner with two well-known Auckland comedians, Chris Brain and Irene Pink.
The meeting with Boris was to firmly establish collaboration with and support of the Nutters Club in any way that we can (as we share common goals, beliefs and methods). I've agreed to be a future guest on the Nutters Club radio show, the upcoming TV show, or both.
The meeting with Chris and Irene was to talk about last year's RETHiNK grant experience, and how comedy can be used as a means to rethinking our attitudes towards mental illness.
Meeting five
Today Miriam and I visited central Auckland film-schools, student accommodation, galleries, artists and community alliances, cafés (and other popular meeting places) to speak to creative people about the RETHiNK grant and get permission to distribute promotional material.
Finding the appropriate introductory sentence, line or conversation starter is always a challenge and it feels like you're cold calling like a sales person. It helped immensely that we were giving money away rather than asking for it, and everyone we approached was enthusiastic about the message and keen to help.
We discovered like-minded people excited about the opportunity to apply for a grant to showcase their work in a way that helps the general public understand the value within the experience of mental illness. We had conversations with people already starting creative projects that would easily fit the "RETHiNK" theme and helped promote the Like Minds Message by having a good excuse to challenge stereotypes and promote positive social change amongst the people we met.
People were happy to help us promote the grant and/or look at applying themselves. Some universities offered to put the promotional material in their student orientation packs, and accommodation blocks allowed us to do mailbox drops. Lecturers and tutors of multimedia, art and design wanted to look at collective projects and assignments to give their students and theatres, galleries, artists alliances and entertainment venues offered to send information to their email databases.
Contact details
Taimi Allan
Team Leader
Like Minds, Like Mine
Mind and Body Consultants Ltd
Ph: (+649) 630 5909 ext 871
Mob: (+6427) 655 2770
Fax: (+649) 630 5944
www.mindandbody.co.nz
www.outoftheirminds.co.nz
www.rethinkgrant.co.nz
