My life experience feeds into my job. All the co-ordinators bring personal experience of mental distress and the discrimination and prejudice that go with that to their work. Through the project we aim to enable others to challenge the same discrimination that we have experienced.

Several years ago I had a breakdown. Even before that I felt the impact of the misinformation and prejudice in mental health very keenly. I was a student living in London, feeling very alienated. I didn't have a support network. I knew there was something wrong because I was feeling extreme mood swings and going for walks at 2am. In the local paper there was a campaign to stop the building of a day centre for mental health service users in the community. The whole emphasis of the article was “these are dangerous people and we don't want them in our backyard”. I thought “I can't be experiencing mental distress, because I'm not like them”.

I ended up being admitted as an emergency case because I didn't seek help in time. When that happens the intervention is much more traumatic. I had to go to hospital and was given medication against my will. My biggest enemy was discrimination and prejudice.

After that I changed my life completely: I did an MA in investigative journalism. I wanted my voice to be heard and to bring the issues to the fore. Mental Health Media brought the mental health and the media aspect together. It's one of the few organisations where people with experience of mental distress are welcomed with open arms.

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BACKGROUND

• Public opinion: tax collecting

• Laying some new foundations

• What worked for me

Related Internet Links

• Public sector jobs

• Snakes & Ladders

My work involves helping to raise the confidence and skills of mental health service-users to challenge prejudice. We have networking meetings that let service users share insights and experience. We form alliances with journalists to increase their understanding and offer training courses that look at discrimination.

It's not only about steeling people up to be activists, it's often a much more subtle process of re-skilling and building up their confidence. There have been encouraging stories of success. It's a rarity for a project's leaders all to have direct experience of mental distress. We all have a personal stake in challenging discrimination.

Changing minds

Open Up is a national project run by Mental Health Media, a mental health charity. It is one of six major projects funded by Moving People, an anti-discrimination programme led by four organisations which last year received £18 million from the Big Lottery Fund and Comic Relief.

“People with experience of mental distress often don't realise they've been discriminated against, so our work is quite a revelation,” says Brigid Morris, Open Up project manager. “We're a grassroots project - it's about supporting people and connecting them.”

This year, Open Up is launching a new programme called Project Support. The charity is looking for individuals with experience of mental distress to apply with ideas for projects that challenge discrimination.

www.openuptoolkit.net
www.movingpeople.org.uk
www.mhmedia.com

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