Lessons from England’s biggest ever mental health awareness campaign, Time To Change
The destigmatisation of mental health has been one of the most drastic shifts in public attitudes of the 21st century and conversations have played a huge role.
Leading the way was the Time to Change campaign, a partnership between MIND and Rethink Mental Illness, which was a game-changer for normalising conversations about mental health. Running from 2007 to 2021 it:
helped bring mental health conversations into the mainstream
achieved a significant reduction in negative representations of mental illness
While this was a massive project, with a budget in the millions, there are still lessons that organisations who care about climate can learn from its success.
We spoke with Sue Baker, the former director of Time to Change, about her key takeaways and what climate and mental health have in common, namely that people can feel afraid or ill-equipped to broach the topic.
“People’s attitudes and behaviours are rooted in a lack of knowledge, lack of confidence or a sense of discomfort,’ Sue said. ‘They might feel unable to talk about it because they are not equipped to, they haven’t got the capacity and information at their fingertips, or perhaps conversations haven’t happened in their communities or with their peers before.”
Which makes learning to have those difficult conversations all the more important.
Here’s what she shared:
1) Do your research
Audience research was crucial before embarking on any campaign activities. It helped the charities focus their resources in the right place by gaining an understanding of who to target and where the biggest behaviour changes could be achieved.
Sue said: 'You have to start with where your audiences are, rather than assume you know what’s going to work.'
Their research found that, when it came to negative attitudes to mental health, the majority of people were 'Subconscious Stigmatisers'. That is, they didn’t realise their words or actions were harmful or know how to change their behaviour.
'The majority of stigma was driven by a lack of capacity, rather than ill intent,' Sue explained.
The research found that working with Subconscious Stigmatisers to help inform and educate them would have more of an impact on the more actively negative sections of society - than head-on challenge, because they’d be more likely to listen to and consider the views of friends and their community.
Action point: Who do you want to target in your next campaign? What do they care about? What might get them talking?
2) Never underestimate the power of social contact
It’s been proven that social contact is more effective than education when it comes to challenging stigma and discrimination, so face-to-face conversations were absolutely central to this campaign.
More than 7,000 people with lived experience of mental health were recruited to act as Champions, volunteering to have conversations with people about their conditions. As Sue explained, 'We had to put a human face on a very feared, misunderstood, stereotypical image.'
She added: 'When people talk to each other and establish common ground, prejudices and assumptions are often challenged and replaced with mutual understanding and respect.'
Following her work on this campaign, Sue went on to co-author one of the biggest reports ever published into mental health stigmatisation, which found that social contact interventions are the most effective ways to reduce stigma worldwide.
Action point: How can you weave more social contact into your campaigns? Could you employ a similar ‘champions’ model to help get conversations happening within your target communities?
3) Don’t forget the power of partnerships
Carefully-considered commercial partnerships can give campaigns a huge boost, if you get them right.
Some of the most successful during the Time to Change campaign were collaborations with PG Tips and McVities, which meant free cups of tea and biscuits could be used to encourage people to stop and chat.
'It gave us the ability to offer a free cuppa to people, to say ‘All it will cost you is a conversation’,' said Sue. 'It was an easy exchange, all we wanted was a couple of minutes of their time.'
The opportunity was maximised with the messaging printed on the tea bags and biscuit packets.
Action point: Who could you collaborate with? Are there any companies - local or national - that would be a good fit and could help you to amplify your message?
4) Meet your audience where they are
One of the key hallmarks of this campaign, which was again helped by the extensive research at the start, was that it was taken directly to the places where the target audience were most likely to be found.
A network of more than 60 regional hubs were created across England, which ran a series of social contact events featuring structured, focused conversations, with a purpose.
The hubs also worked closely with over 2,000 secondary schools and helped more than 3,000 local employers become more aware of the mental health needs of their staff.
In later stages of the campaign, when men aged 24-44 - who were a ‘cold’ audience towards mental health - became a key target, over 170 sports groups were involved.
Messages were printed everywhere from beer mats to tram stops, while media engagement included not only training and guidelines for reporters, but support for script writers on some of the nation’s biggest soaps, so that the subject was literally being taken right into people’s living rooms.
Action point: Where do your ideal audience hang out? How could you get your message to them while they are there?
5) Be ambitious – but keep your call to action simple
The Time to Change programme’s overarching goals were big:
Improve public attitudes and behaviour
Reduce discrimination
Empower people with poor mental health to take action
But while the goals may have been ambitious, the call-to-action was simple: Make time to talk.
The campaign team knew that, underlying all of the above, was the power of conversation, so the simple act of talking became the call to action. It worked because it was easy to understand, both for the intended target audience and those delivering the campaign.
As well as the social interaction work the campaign provided tips on how to have difficult conversations and created a national Time to Talk Day in 2014, with the aim of achieving more than one million mental health conversations. A huge target, but one that everybody could get behind.
'It was about building a movement across the nation,' said Sue.
Action point: Does your call to action reflect your ambition? Is it strong and simple enough? Is there anything diluting your message?
6) Analyse, learn and adapt as you go along
Where you start may not be where you finish. Adaptability and responsiveness is key to creating an effective, sustainable, long-term campaign.
Time to Change’s initial research led to the first phase of the campaign being targeted at Subconscious Stigmatisers aged 24-44, but as it evolved the results were continually analysed, resulting in a second phase which targeted teenagers , and adults from African and Caribbean communities. A third phase aimed to reach a colder audience – men aged 24 to 44 with no experience of mental health services or support.
Action point: Use the results and data you are continually gathering in order to inform the direction of your work. Don’t be afraid to narrow your focus or alter your target audience if it becomes obvious that this will have more impact.
Sue was a guest speaker at our Curious Conversations Impact Group, which brings together experts and practitioners from different sectors to promote the use of conversations for social impact.
It’s open to everyone seeking to build conversations into their campaigns, and meets online once every two months. You can find out more about it and how to join here.