Five years since the launch of the Royal Foundation of The Prince and Princess of Wales’ Heads Together campaign, a report from the charity partners highlights how the initiative has changed the conversation on mental health across the UK in the long-term.
Mental Health Innovations is one of the twelve mental health charity partners that was established by Heads Together and is proud to have helped launch the campaign. Our text message support support service Shout was launched in 2018 and was designed to respond to the need for a free digital service that gives people a confidential and anonymous way to talk about their mental health and take their next steps to getting further help. To date Shout has taken more than 1.5 million conversations with 540,000 texters, 43% of whom have told us they’ve never spoken to anyone else about how they’re feeling.
The report highlights how attitudes to mental health have changed over the last five years, with 53% of British adults now talking about their mental health, an increase from 42% in April 2017. This means an estimated six million additional people are having conversations about their mental health.
While great strides have been made to get more people talking about their mental health, the report also looks towards the importance of the next five years in doing more to understand the barriers that children and young people still face in speaking about their mental health, doing more to reach people that this message may not have reached, for example older men, and people from racially minoritised communities, and ensuring that for those that do ask for help, the right support is in place.