Let's fix the system - not the person!
Help us get the Department of Health to adopt Give 5: Steps to a Wellbeing Rights Framework.
Give 5: Steps to a Wellbeing Rights Framework focuses on what government and organisations can do to better tackle the mental health crisis. Take 5 Steps to Wellbeing is a public health campaign focusing on what individuals can do to improve their mental health. We can’t have one without the other.
Too often, people battling 'mental health' issues are made to feel like they are the problem. That there's something wrong with their brain, that they're weak, or that they haven't 'tried hard enough'. This only makes things worse.
We know that the world around us shapes us. Poverty, violence, discrimination, isolation and toxic cultures are often the real culprits. The evidence shows that there are serious failures in our systems causing devastating harm to individuals, families and communities. It's time for radical change. That time is now.
Give 5: Steps to a Wellbeing Rights Framework
People with lived experience, along with mental health workers, have created this rights-based framework. It outlines 5 steps which government bodies and organisations can act on to address the 'mental health' crisis.
Quick fixes and band-aid solutions might look good, but don't address the real issues. It's not just about more resources, but how and where the money is spent. We call on the government to adopt this framework and need your help.
Give People the dignity, compassion and hope to which they are entitled. Human rights are essential to healing and recovery and must be reflected in mental health, housing, and in all aspects of people's lives.
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The promotion and protection of human rights in mental health is reliant upon a redistribution of power in the clinical, research and public policy settings.Professor Dainius Puras, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, 2017.
There can be no good mental health without human rights. The right to good mental health depends on a wide range of other human rights being realised, including the right to housing, social security, non-discrimination, equality, and protection from violence.
Currently the government is failing in its legal duty under international human rights law to respect, protect and fulfil people's right to mental health. Key mental health and suicide prevention strategies fail to incorporate core human rights obligations, including equality and accountability.
The recent increase in attention being paid to the need for 'trauma-informed' approaches in mental health and other public services is to be welcomed.
Yet the critical, rights-based component of trauma-informed approaches has been diluted or even ignored. Principles such as safety, trust, choice, collaboration, and empowerment are too often absent in practice.
Both the United Nations and the WHO have made it abundantly clear that business as usual is no longer politically viable, nor is it compliant with human rights.
They have provided a route-map for governments to move towards a human rights-based approach to mental health, which transcends mental health alone, and requires rights-based action across all spheres of public life.
You will find links below to a range of evidence sources that support Step 5 of Take Five Steps to Wellbeing Rights Framework. These are drawn from both international and local levels, including the United Nations and WHO, academic journals and books, parliamentary and NGO reports, alongside analysis by New Script for Mental Health.
Further links will be added on an ongoing basis.
Act now to endorse Give 5
Use the form below to show your support, as either an individual or an organisation. Additionally, you can choose to send an email to the Minister for Health, Mike Nesbitt, to urge him to endorse Give 5 too!.