Little Things – making a big difference to promoting positive mental health

Authors:Enda Saul , Emer C

Abstract One of the strategic priorities of the HSE’s Mental Health Division is to promote positive mental health. Little Things is the integrated positive mental health campaign (TV, radio, digital, website, out of home, posters and postcards) brought to you by the HSE’s Mental Health and Communications Divisions and a wide range of 32 partners. It shares some evidence-based, simple and powerful day-to-day steps – little things that we can all do to protect our own mental health, and support the wellbeing of the people we care about. People are encouraged to eat and sleep well, take regular exercise, talk about their problems, drinking less alcohol and staying in touch and spending time with other people – all proven to promote positive mental health.The campaign aims to:– Change attitudes and behaviour with regard to mental health;– Convey that everyone will experiences dips in their mental health– Inform people that there are things they can do to help themselves and help others; and– Signpost people to yourmentalhealth.ieand the Samaritans’ new freephone 116123 for emotional support.Methodology:Evidence – evidence suggests that prevention and resilience building is what is most effective in both human and monetary terms. The evidence also suggests that what is required is a message that mental health is on a continuum and the earlier that one gets appropriate help, the less likely one is going to experience extreme distress.Service User Involvement – through using real people to share their real stories in the campaign. Involving service users in our work is a key priority for the MHD and this campaign has involved service users at all stages.Stakeholder involvement – through partner organisation involvement and participation in helping to determine the messaging and approach for the campaign. The partners signed a partner campaign pledge publicly stating their support for the campaign and commitment to helping spread the campaign’s messages.Partnership – Little Things also has media partnerships in place with TV3, INM, IRS (15 radio stations nationwide) and thejournal.ie. There has been widespread media involvement and our creative agency and our media buying agency have been committed partners with us.Learning – through continually reviewing, auditing, evaluating the campaign, we learn more about our audiences and what works and we continually make changes based on feedback and analysis.Results of the campaign:More than 46,000 people have liked our Facebook page, and the campaign has more than 6,500 followers on Twitter.since the campaign launch in October 2014, yourmentalhealth.ie has received more than 580,000 visitors, with more than 1.5 million page views since the start of the campaign. People visit the website for information on mental health and signposting to services.An evaluation of the campaign, in Winter 2016, found that 73% of respondents said the campaign adverts make you think differently about feeling down. Over a third (38%) said that after seeing the adverts, they thought more about the little things that can help your mental health.

Keywords:

evidence, service-user involvement, partnership, engagement, results

How to Cite:

Saul E, C E. Little Things – making a big difference to promoting positive mental health. International Journal of Integrated Care. 2017;17(5):A271.

DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/ijic.3582Published on 17th October 2017