Over the last six months, Voice has paid particular focus to the issues surrounding mental health, and has endeavoured to raise awareness of the importance of talking about your health. Now, to coincide with World Health Day on 7 April, we will be bringing that focus to a close.
During this time we have covered a lot, and more importantly learned a lot about the continued issues surrounding mental health.
YoungMinds partnered with Voice to help promote their #helloyellow day campaign, and provided a number of blog posts regarding mental health and young people. Richard from their youth engagement team also provided us with an interview to celebrate the charity’s 25th Birthday!
We reported that mental health can affect everyone, including students and musicians, and the lack of funding is putting record levels of pressure on the police force.
Prince Harry made headlines by announcing a joint initiative to put more focus on mental health provisions in the army, and we were contacted by a veteran who wanted to share his experiences and struggles with mental health – both in and out of the army. This resulted in Voice publishing our first ever serial!
We heard about Buster the Dog, an important companion to Upstart employee Jen in her battles with depression, and Cath interviewed Lois Ward-Marvin about how her performance art helps with their depression. There was even some international coverage with Sam’s superb reporting from Adelaide Fringe.
You, our users, have also been fantastic in uploading your own experiences and issues of mental health. Amanda de Souza wrote two blogs documenting her six months and year milestones on anti-depressants. We also had a user submit an anonymous blog detailing their own struggles with anorexia in response to our coverage of Eating Disorder Awareness Week.
Thank-you all for your posts and your support in making Voice in your head as successful as it has been. Rest assured that we do read everything you post, even if we don’t comment.
Although Voice in your head is coming to an end, we remain committed to the idea that mental health awareness is crucial, and that we should all continue to strive towards breaking this taboo. We will still report on issues pertaining to mental health where appropriate, and still encourage you all to make your own experiences and opinions on the matter heard. There is more that all of us can do to end people struggling in isolation.
To that end, I am pleased to announce that for the next four months our attention will move towards activism, and how art can play an integral role to campaigning for change. This will be the first time our theme will straddle both Voice and Arts Award on Voice, and I’m very excited to work closer with Nici during these coming months.
All our mental health content can be found in the Voice in your head voicebox.
If you are struggling with mental health issues, or just need someone to talk to, you can contact The Samaritans by calling 116 123, or emailing [email protected]
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