Annual review 2007/08

Stigma and discrimination

Time to Change

Making a difference

Over a year ago, we put our partnership principles into action and teamed up with Mind, Mental Health Media and the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, to put together a bid to run an anti discrimination and wellbeing programme in England.  We successfully secured £18 million from the Big Lottery Fund and Comic Relief to run Time to Change from October 2007 to 2011.   

Time to Change is a bold new initiative designed to tackle stigma and discrimination around mental health head on and to promote wellbeing.  The ambitious programme is based on consultation, international best practice, and service user and carer leadership to achieve our goals.

Making it happen

Time to Change has already launched six national projects and 28 local projects, and as part of the partnership, Rethink will run:

• An England-wide anti-stigma campaign to raise awareness and reduce stigma and discrimination. It will be the catalyst for a movement for change that encourages involvement across our portfolio of activities.
  
  
• Six of the 28 community-based projects which will build local engagement and get diverse communities involved.
  
  
• Targeted training and education reaching almost 10,000 people who have the capacity to directly influence the welfare, well-being and social inclusion of people with mental health problems, including trainee teachers and medical students.
  
  
• An exciting and informative campaign website.

Working with our partners both locally and nationally, we’ll create a series of mass participation events involving over 250,000 people. We’ll seek out test cases to push forward the boundaries of anti-discrimination practice, and actively pursue them in the courts. And we’ll launch two empowerment projects designed to enable people affected by mental illness – individually and collectively – to achieve real and lasting change.

Making an impact

By 2012 Time to Change will:

• Significantly increase public awareness by reaching an estimated 30 million people. This will include a 5% shift in positive attitudes towards mental health and a 5% reduction in discrimination.
  
  
• Give 100,000 people with mental health problems the increased knowledge, confidence and assertiveness to challenge discrimination.
  
  
• Breakdown discrimination and improve well being through physical activity for 274,500 people with a range of mental health problems.

Moving forward

We’ll be encouraging new partnerships with Rethink and Time to Change in order to develop the work further, rolling out our ideas to create a lasting legacy.

Moving you forward

You can sign up to be involved and find out more about Time to Change at www.movingpeople.org.uk.