4th December 2009

MindWise launch report into ‘Rethink Politics Programme’ at Stormont

The event which was jointly hosted by Jim Wells MLA, Carmel Hanna MLA and John McCallister MLA brought together representatives from a range of areas including MLAs, mental health commissioners and professionals, and other statutory and voluntary agencies to hear about the programme outcomes and the recommendations contained in the report for improving engagement between those affected by mental illness and elected representatives.

Rethink Politics was a three year project funded by the Electoral Commission aimed at raising awareness, creating understanding and encouraging participation in politics by people who currently experience or have experienced mental illness. Over the past three years, Rethink Politics has engaged mental health service users and carers, MPs and other decision makers across the country in various events and training sessions across England and Northern Ireland.

Locally the programme had included workshops with the charity’s service users to inform on political and democratic processes followed on by a ‘politics convention’ which was held in Belfast in July of 2008. A series of ‘politics coffee mornings’ were held at the charity’s community resource centres in Lurgan, Portadown and Downpatrick over late 2009 and 2009. These coffee morning events gave individuals with mental illness the opportunity to directly engage with local political representatives to discuss the particular issues this sector faces. The programme completed in Northern Ireland with a trip to Parliament Buildings in February 2009.

During the launch, alongside the presentation given about the report by Paul Corry, the Public Affairs Director for Rethink, two individuals who are currently living with mental illness also took the opportunity to recount their experience of participating in the programme and shared the insights they had gained about local political processes. All three MLAs also took the opportunity to strongly express their backing for the continuing development of support and services for those living in Northern Ireland who are affected by mental illness and they unanimously endorsed any efforts along the lines of the ‘Rethink Politics’ programme that encouraged individuals with a mental illness to more actively participate in democratic processes.

Speaking at the event, Seamus Magee, Head of The Northern Ireland Office of the Electoral Commission congratulated both charities (Rethink and MindWise) for their highly successful implementation of the programme, he said “Our organisation has responsibility for ensuring that all sections of the public understand how to engage with the democratic processes. We were aware that statistically there tended to be lower than average levels of engagement among people affected by mental illness. The Electoral Commission’s reasoning behind funding this programme was to help redress this imbalance and judging by the findings contained in the report, the programme has taken significant steps towards doing just that”.

The event concluded with a presentation from Bill Halliday, Chief Executive of MindWise. Mr Halliday took the opportunity to reassure the audience that although this was the end of the ‘Rethink Politics’ programme, it would not mark the end of the work that MindWise as a newly independent mental health charity would undertake to lobby locally to ensure higher levels of local political engagement with the issue of mental illness. He said, “Although we have now de-merged from Rethink we still intend to actively work with them and 3 other mental health charities, Hafal, NSF Scotland and Shine in the future as part of a ‘national’ mental health alliance which will lobby and campaign across Great Britain and Ireland to affect positive change in relation to mental illness. Locally we will continue to build on the excellent links we have made with MLAs during the ‘Rethink Politics’ programme to insure that in Northern Ireland, mental illness remains in its rightful place as a key priority for our own elected representatives both in terms if developing services to address need and challenging the stigma and discrimination which often surrounds the issue of mental illness, which for individuals who are affected can impede recovery and social integration”.

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