Name: Scott Harrand

*Social Action Research

The client:

Overview of the client.

Who are they, when did they start, why did they start, what do they do, how are they funded?

My chosen client is the Mental Health Foundation, a British based organisation, aiming to improve the lives of people that have been affected by mental illnesses, through a wide variety of methods. The organisation first began in 1949, it was founded by neurochemist, Derek Richter, and stockbroker, Ian Henderson. The organisation began it’s life as the Mental Health Research Fund, or MHRF, and it was not until 1973 that the organisation finally got the name we know it as today. At it’s conception, the original aims of the organisation we’re to help fund further research into mental health issues. Since then, the organisation has evolved, and so too have it’s goals. The Mental Health Foundation now aims to bring mental health issues into the spotlight, and make the UK aware of these issues, as well as to approve the support available to people with mental health complications and learning disabilities in the UK. The organisation supports itself primarily through various forms of donations, from both individual contributors as well as corporate contributions from other organisations and companies. Between 2011 and 2012 the organisation had reached an income of £4.9m.

The issues:

Your client might advocate on a number of different yet related issues.

What issues your client campaign on?

What are some of the impacts they have managed to achieve?

What are they still hoping to achieve?The Mental Health Foundation campaigns on, as the name would suggest, issues related to mental health in the UK. However, this is very broad, varied category that encompasses a wide variety of different issues within it. For example, in 1999, the organisation created with the Foundation for People With Learning Disabilities, a subdivision of the organisation as a whole that focuses on support for people with learning disabilities. In addition to entire subdivisions, the organisation has also launched a wide variety campaigns in it’s time, generally with the aim of helping to support people with mental health problems or help them reach further assistance in some way or another. For example, one of their campaigns, the “Be Mindful” campaign, which aims to promotes the use of a new method in combating depression as an alternative to medication. The campaign was displayed in a variety of ways, including the production of posters, and as well as detailed descriptions of the concept behind the method on online resources created by the Mental Health Foundation. A somewhat different

The issues:

(issue continued)

campaign begun by the Mental Health Foundation includes the Mental Health Awareness Week (MHAW) campaign, an annual event having first begun in 2000 and having been continued for the past fifteen years. Held between the 11th and the 17th of May, the campaign seeks to make the general UK public more aware of mental health issues, and their effects, in order to spark greater discussion about the topic and generate greater awareness of the various mental health issues that many people in the UK suffer from. Each annual event tends to have a specific focus that it is trying to raise awareness for. For example, the most recent Mental Health Awareness Week focused on the topic of Mindfulness, perhaps to merge together with the “Be Mindful” campaign that was launched around a similar time. Other topics of the events have included topics, such as Alcohol (in the 2006 event) and “Fear” (in the 2009 event), as well as many others. This particular campaign encompasses many of the general aims of the organisation, in the sense that it’s goal is to promote information about mental health.

Facts and figures:

Use this space to highlight key facts and figures related to your client and the social issue you are trying to tackle. These could be very useful later on in your project as you try to raise awareness.

• “1 in 4 people will experience some kind of mental health problem in the course of a year.” – Mental Health Foundation

• “One in ten children between the ages of one and 15 has a mental health disorder.” – Mental Health Foundation, The Office for National Statistics Mental Health in Children and Young People in Great Britain.

• “Depression affects 1 in 5 older people living in the community and 2 in 5 living in care homes.” – Mental Health Foundation, Psychiatry in the Elderly

• “Dementia affects 5% of people over the age of 65 and 20% of those over 80.” – Mental Health Foundation, National Institute For Clinical Excellence.

• “As many as 9.7% (of the population) suffer mixed depression and anxiety, making it the most prevalent mental health problem in the population as a whole.” – Mental Health Foundation

• “Between 8-12% of the population experience depression in any year.” – Mental Health Foundation, The Office for National Statistics Psychiatric Morbidity Report