Time to Change is funded until 2015

We are delighted to announce that we have secured funding to continue our campaign to end discrimination against people with mental health problems. From this month, the Department of Health and Comic Relief will be funding Time to Change to carry out a new programme of work, that will last until March 2015.

We have achieved a lot in the last 4 years.  As a society, we are becoming more open about mental health.  Crucially, more people with mental health problems are now living lives free from discrimination. Find out more about our impact so far.

But there is still a long way to go to reach that tipping point where ignorance and stigma in relation to mental health are unacceptable, and where everyone with a mental health problem can be open about it without fear of stigma and discrimination.

We’ll be using our new funding to create long term change.  This is more important than ever in a harsher economic climate, when attitudes to vulnerable groups to society tend to get worse.

All of us at Time to Change are looking forward to taking on the challenge of reducing discrimination even further over the next three and a half years. This is what our Director, Sue Baker, had to say:

“Stigma and discrimination ruin lives, and prevent people with mental health problems using their full potential and playing an active part in society. We have worked hard over the last four years to secure the beginnings of change and build a broad social movement, and have seen robust evidence of a reduction in discrimination. “

“But it takes more than four years to overturn decades of prejudice – this is the work of a generation. Mind and Rethink Mental Illness are grateful for this new funding which will make a difference to the lives of millions of people – those with mental health problems and those around them.”

With this new funding, we’ll continue to aim to change attitudes and behaviours on a mass scale, empower individuals to tackle discrimination, and broaden our social movement to all sectors and communities. Activity will include a new grants scheme to fund projects led by people with experience of mental distress, and a strand working to tackle the stigma and discrimination faced by young people. Find out more about what we’ll be doing in phase 2.