shaping us: an awareness campaign
As someone who only recently moved into the UK, I’ve had an inconsistent interest, awareness, or opinion on the royal family as the US media presents them. I remember one of my most excited times of interest for them was the launch of the Heads Together campaign starting in 2016. It was about ending the stigma “around mental health” (the quotes allude to my last post about language, not that I don’t believe there is a stigma when it comes to mental health and wellbeing) and put a huge weight on talking to others. There were videos of Harry & William talking about the death of their mom and how that impacted them, there were videos with Lady Gaga and Stephen Fry talking about their own mental health.
I didn’t come to the UK until 2021, so I haven’t been on the ground for any sort of shift regarding mental health care and cultural change over the years since, but I am here now. And there are year wait lines for mental health care service through CAMHS (Child & Adolescent Mental Health Services), and a scraped mental health care plan from the government, during a global pandemic that has documented negative impacts on people’s wellbeing and mental health. And guess what was announced last week? Another royal campaign. Shaping Us.
For all the money being spent on this campaign around early childhood (which is DOCUMENTED FOR YEARS AS IMPORTANT), why aren’t they funding programs? Why aren’t they donating to schools? Why aren’t there third spaces being funded that lift up what the findings in research tell us? What is awareness if there is no movement? What is research and science if no one puts it into practice and implements what we are learning to be true (or true for now)? I don’t think only the royal family is guilty of this by any means, but as someone who fell for the excitement behind the last mental health campaign, I am disappointed to see the repeat of awareness as the goal. Especially when they are an institution that has enough money to put their checks where their mouth is in backing community mental health projects and family centred projects at the very least.