Dumped in the Gutter

See Me Scotland are pretty active at the moment - I don't know whether this was a flyer or a newpaper insert, but any which way it has ended up in the gutter. I saw it this morning and couldn't help blipping it, not least because See Me are currently running a photography competition which blippers may be interested in.

It is beyond doubt that people with a mental health related diagnosis (which includes depression and stress) feel there is a stigma associated with it. It is also true that a huge proportion of us will get such a diagnosis at some time in our life. You see different numbers in different places, but one in five of us seems as good an estimate as any.. It seems strange to me that these two facts can co-exist. It's a bit like saying there is a stigma associated with having had fillings - although it doesn't help that people are often particularly vulnerable (by definition) when dealing with their own mental health.

I think that See Me do vital work raising awareness of the truth about mental health, and I am proud to help another charity that helps people with long term mental health issues get back into the workforce.

I really hope that a lot more of the community can learn from the positive attitude See Me display to public engagement. I find it frustrating how poor some of the communications from other organisations are, niggling over imagery, terminology and "stigmatising language" without helping people to understand why these are important. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trivialising the importance of these things, but when your audience doesn't understand the wider issues you'll never make lasting progress!

Let's hope the location of this flyer is in no way symbolic of the way it's message is received.