9. Using the Media

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The training programme integrates a media and communication strategy in promoting mental health and fighting against stigma associated with mental illness.

 

What this criterion means for care professionals

 

Participants need to understand how to use the media, especially Internet and social networks, as basic tools for health promotion but also to combat discrimination and stigma. They need to understand how to use media campaigns that promote the point of view of people with mental health problems and fight against discrimination and stigma. They should keep up to date with media discourse on mental health as well as national and local mental health promotion campaigns. They should be informed as to how and where community members can access reliable health promotion information.

 

Illustrate how this criterion could be respected for initial training

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In underlining the central role of mental health as an engine for wellness and productivity, initial training should give a specific focus on the role of the media as an instrument for mental health promotion and for communicating about interventions of proven effectiveness. Students also need to master the concept of stigma and the way to combat the changing attitudes and behaviors of different members of the community. They must know how to master the use of language in the media and how to influence negative stereotypes associated with mental illness. They must know how to use the media, especially internet and social networks, to combat discrimination and stigma and as basic tools for contemporary health promotion.

 

Ideas for training modules/exercises

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• Create a module on the sociology of the media, on the way the media convey the image of people with mental health problems, and how to create positive media messages about mental health.

• Ask students to write scenarios for short films on mental health promotion themes

• Create a competition for posters on mental health promotion themes

• Study the impact of anti-stigma campaigns that have had the greatest national and international impact.

• Study anti-stigma campaigns that have used new forms of action: internet, social networks, online videos etc.

• Exercise using the media to influence negative stereotypes associated with mental illness.

• Explore media use and impact in mental health promotion in traditional “prevention” themes such as suicidality and depression, or use of alcohol or drugs.

• Ask participants to choose an area (e.g. old people, women issues, violence etc.). Review available public information on local service providers (leaflets, web pages, posters, TV commercials). Brainstorm solutions for making the information more people friendly.

• Build a mental health promotion website.

• Use Facebook or Twitter to generate health promotion messages within a community.

• Write a television or radio advertisement on a specific mental health promotion theme. Limit the message to 60 seconds

 

Illustrate how this criterion could be respected for continuous training

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The role of care professionals often involves fighting against social exclusion. Professionals who are already active in the field of mental health often feel that they have little power to combat society’s negative attitudes toward people from socially excluded groups, particularly those with mental health problems. Training should help them to understand their position in the fight against stigma and discrimination and underline how to use the media, especially the latest internet and social networking media, as tools for health promotion, but also for fighting against discrimination and stigma.

 

Ideas for training modules/exercises

• Update knowledge of media campaigns that have or have had a positive impact.

• Review the effectiveness of mental health promotion interventions via the mass media.

• Use computer networks (Facebook, etc) for health promotion messages within a specific group – for example between professionals or in a group of patients. Create support groups among psychiatric patients around issues of health promotion.

• Build training projects that involve contact with media, bringing in as trainers journalists who are sensitive to this sort of reporting.

 

Consult the following Resource Kit for further information, relevant legal and policy texts, and examples of posters, slides and training programmes that respect this criterion:

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