Stop Stigma, Support Recovery, Stay Well

March 06, 2008

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Recovery Happens. Be part of the change. At the heart of the effort to transform the mental health system in Washington State is the need for a change in thinking – an understanding that recovery from mental illness is not only possible, it happens all the time. And that stigmatizing mental illness undermines recovery from it. It’s about a shift in emphasis from mental illness to mental health.

Based on this insight, the Social Marketing Plan [ Portable Document Format 190KB] has launched a campaign to promote mental health by focusing on the elimination of stigma and by generating awareness about recovery and prevention.

Like any marketing effort, the Social Marketing campaign attempts to connect with people in order to influence their choices and behavior. In this case, the choices and behavior involve attitudes toward mental illness.

It's driven by three critical strategies.

Three Strategies to Stop Stigma and Support Recovery

The three strategies identified to stop stigma and support recovery by the Social Marketing Plan are:

Promote the concept of recovery by arranging for recovered persons to tell their stories publicly.
Aggressively rebut the uninformed stigmatization of people with mental illness.
Educate the public about mental illness, how it can be addressed, and how stigma misleads many of us into fear that is not rational and not accurate.

Putting a Face on Recovery

Patricia Deegan is someone who has recovered from mental illness. She went on to obtain a doctorate in clinical psychology, and now works as an activist in the consumer/survivor/ex-patient movement. She has written of her experience with mental illness: "It is important to understand we are faced with recovering not just from mental illness, but also from the effects of being labeled mentally ill."

The first piece of the Social Marketing effort to eliminate stigma, the Speakers Bureau, proceeds from a simple premise: Meeting people face to face and hearing their stories humanizes mental illness in ways that nothing else can.

Ten speakers, at various stages of their own recovery and from diverse geographic areas across Washington State, have received training on public speaking and are involved in shaping a "Stop Stigma, Support Recovery" workshop. The workshop has the added strength that it sparks dialogue among its participants on how everyone has a contribution to make in stopping stigma and supporting recovery. Six speaking engagements at provider agencies across the state have been completed thus far.

After each speaking engagement, focus groups are held with providers who participated in the workshop. These focus groups, in turn, are informing program development and educational materials being developed as part of the Social Marketing campaign.

Stay tuned for a comparable effort currently underway to form a Speakers Bureau of parents and youth.

Getting the News Right

While the Speakers Bureau takes the story of recovery to constituents one workshop at a time, the News Bureau takes aim at the news media, whose views inevitably affect thousands every day. The News Bureau will monitor and respond quickly to stigmatizing media portrayals, providing specific examples to journalists of ways they may be unconsciously falling back on unquestioned stereotypes that prolong stigmatizing points of view.

The News Bureau will also seek to generate news stories about recovery and prevention, and to train members of the community mental health system in effective media advocacy.

Plans are in the works to develop material for journalists and news organizations to help them improve their coverage of mental health issues. This year will see the release of two new resources:

A case statement that provides examples of the many ways the news media can contribute to the stigmatization of mental illness amassing credible evidence of the need to attend to this issue;
A brief guide for journalists on simple strategies for reducing stigma along with news story ideas demonstrating recovery and effective prevention.

Education: The Foundation of Understanding

All of the strategies essentially boil down to targeted education. The third strategy is the creation of educational materials intended for consumers, providers, and policy makers. These include guides and fact sheets with information about navigating the mental health system, key elements of recovery based on consumer experience, and basic principles providers can use to support recovery.

Another piece is aimed more directly at providers, offering road maps to recovery-based research, education, and advocacy as the mental health system in Washington State undergoes a transformation defined and enriched by the goal of recovery.

A survey will be conducted among Washington State clinical staff, looking at the impact on mental-health services providers of the shift in thinking toward a focus on recovery and exploring such questions as:

What does this paradigm shift to recovery really mean for clinical staff on the front-lines delivering services to individuals with severe mental illness in the community mental health system?
How ready are providers as a community to deliver recovery-oriented mental health services?
What are the barriers and how can we break them down?

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