Mind Jersey: Five things to improve mental health awareness in Jersey

To mark Mental Health Awareness Week, Express has been speaking to local charities and organisations about five things they believe could be changed to promote better understanding of mental illness in Jersey.

This year, the national week – which runs from Monday 12 to Sunday 18 May – is focused on the theme of community.

After we heard from Jersey Samaritans yesterday, next up is Mind Jersey CEO Dr Patricia Tumelty, who shared five things she would like to see change in Jersey to improve services and provisions for people with mental health struggles…

1. Free buses to green spaces

I would shift public money to a pot that provides a free twice daily return bus from the town to the country green spaces in Jersey.

This would be for people living with long term mental health problems who cannot afford bus fares, and who therefore cannot enjoy the positive benefits of fresh air and green spaces on their mental health.

2. Shift from disorder to person-centred care

I would shift the emphasis from disorders in mental health provision to a more integrated and person-centred approach that addresses the social, economic and psychological factors contributing to mental illness and mental distress.

Describing people’s problems as individual deficits or disorders can increase shame, stigma, hopelessness, despair and disempowerment.

This in turn contributes to ever-increasing referrals for interventions that may not be addressing the real cause of problems.

The important role of relationships in recovery and the role of carers needs to be recognised across all our mental health services.

To achieve this, all staff working in front line mental health services would have training in systems thinking, skills and practices.

3. Money for for family support

I would shift some public money from policy to practical support for families.

Poverty is a major underlying cause of mental distress resulting in debt, poor housing, poor decision making, and inadequate nutrition all which place people and families under extreme pressure, and thus creating vicious cycles of despair and poor mental health.

I would cut spending on writing policies about children and families and shift the cash to provide more social, material and practical support for families.

This might include free drop-in centres for families to connect with, and learn from each other to reduce distress and reduce referrals.

Policies alone don’t change lives – kindness, connection and practical support does.

4. Lived experience in recruitment

I would shift emphasis on outside recruitment in mental health organisations and invest in supporting people from within to activate their lived experience.

This would involve improving how we support volunteers to boost retention and grow more paid staff from within through the mental health peer support model.

Currently people who have experienced poor mental health come up against many barriers when trying to re-enter the workplace. I would ask government to fund people who want to train as mental health nurses on-island but who cannot afford to do so. Funding would ensure people were paid whist they train.

That way we would increase opportunities for people with lived experience to train as mental health nurses and at the same time address health inequalities, levelling up, social impact, social mobility all in one go.

5. Interventions as social support

I would shift the balance towards more social interventions in the field of mental health care and away from the dominant clinical, medical pharmaceutical model of care.

Interventions that involve medicine are often necessary and helpful when a person is experiencing a severe mental health crisis and as part of an ongoing recovery package of care.

However, we need more social and practical approaches such as that delivered by mental health peer support teams. This would also begin to address the wider causes of mental ill-health.