Nottingham connected
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difficult to conquer. It means the ability to
appreciate the effort of living and caring. It
means all of those things and better, yet it means
the difficulty of faking a smile and going through
the day without complaining.”
“Educating people to reduce stigma and improve
quality of life for those with mental illness and
their families.”
“I have always believed the meaning of stigma is
the lack of understanding of the unknown. With
making it more aware will lessen the fear people
have of Mental Health Diseases.”
“It means to educate myself to the extent that I
can separate the person from the illness.”
“Mental illness awareness means acceptance and
love rather than judgement and shame; it means
an end to the stigma and the beginning of hope.”
According to the Ontario Healthy Communities
Coalition, the word “communities” has been used
in the English language since the 14th century to
refer to groups of people within a district who share
characteristics and a sense of identity. As such, they
always work together to ensure the safe and welfare
of each other—this is what we would call their
wellbeing. The concept of community has also now
expanded to include virtual communities, which
are defined as groups of people who interact via
communication media rather than face-to-face.
Communities are known to have always worked
together for their wellbeing including mental health.
For example, in the mid-19th century, William
Sweetser was the first to coin the term “mental
hygiene”, which can be seen as the precursor to
contemporary approaches to work on promoting
positive mental health. Isaac Ray, one of the founders
and the fourth president of the Am
American Psychiatric
News & Sports
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Association, further defined mental hygiene as “the
art of preserving the mind against all incidents and
influences calculated to deteriorate its qualities, impair
its energies, or derange its movements. Another
key important figure in the development of ‘mental
hygiene’ movement was Dorothea Dix (1802–1887).
Dix was a school teacher who endeavoured throughout
her life to help people with mental disorders, and to
bring to light the deplorable conditions into which
they were put. Before this movement, it was not
uncommon that people affected by mental illness in
the 19th century would be considerably neglected,
often left alone in deplorable conditions, barely even
having sufficient clothing.
Today we see our communities carry on the ‘mental
hygiene’ work started all those years ago in many ways
and as we have heard the responses from the volunteers
of our diverse communities, it is important that they are
well supported to better promote the mental hygiene of
our communities. One of the ways to support this is the
campaign that is being organised by various partners in
Nottingham such as the Nottingham City Council, Self
Help UK, the Institute of Mental Health, Nottingham
Recovery College, Notts County’s charity arm Football
in the Community, the Mojatu Foundation, Nottingham
Jobs Hub, Nottingham FE College, Nottingham Forest
Community Trust and Framework to understand the
problems that people are facing and possibly offer
solutions to this dilemma.
Additionally, equipping them with the right trainings.
One that has been highly recommended is the Mental
Health First Aid which Mojatu Foundation and Utulivu
Women’s Group plus other partners will be providing
from late 2018.
Please see Page 10 for more details.