Time to Change in Leeds

Case study: Time to Change in Leeds

Run by Leeds Partnerships NHS Foundation Trust and NHS Leeds

NHS Leeds and Leeds Partnerships NHS Foundation Trust are working together and have employed a Time to Change project worker to coordinate a group of volunteers to take the anti-discrimination message out to events and festivals.

Led by people with lived experience

In this campaign people with experience of mental health problems are at the forefront of delivering messages to the public. The Time to Change Leeds project worker, Tricia Thorpe, has recruited 12 volunteers, all of whom, like Tricia herself, have experience of mental health problems.  The volunteers take the campaign to community events and festivals, talking to the public about mental health problems.

Volunteers are given training on Mental Health First Aid, presentation skills, confidence and self-esteem and media skills.  This helps to build their skills, confidence and CVs, and since being involved in the project, one volunteer has gone back to work, another has just been offered a job and a third is now going to college.

Taking the message to where people are

The simple but effective approach works because it takes the campaign to where people already are – the group has been to Leeds Pride, Leeds Metropolitan University’s Freshers Week and ‘Light Night’, a night where venues across the city are open all night for the public to explore. 

Time to change resources

The group uses Time to Change branded materials based on the national campaign – for example, wipe-clean pledge boards based on those produced by the national team for live pledge events.  Within just five months the team gathered 500 pledges and engaged with many more members of the public.

The pledge tepee

Building on the pledge idea, Tricia and her team produced a tepee by sewing together photos of the pledges people had made.  The tepee helps to draw attention to Time to Change at events, and really engages the public, who read the pledges that others have made on the tepee before making their own.

Creating the tepee helped involve other groups as the team asked mother and baby groups, older people’s craft groups, day centres and other community groups to help sew it together.  This created another opportunity to start conversations about mental health – people talked about their own experiences as they helped with the sewing.

The Human Library

The team also runs ‘Human Library’ events, where instead of borrowing a book, members of the public can ‘borrow’ a volunteer for a short conversation about their experiences of having a mental health problem.  This can be an effective and engaging way of breaking down negative stereotypes, as people get to hear the real story directly from someone who has experienced it first hand. 

A recent Human Library event was run in partnership with Leeds Central Library, who were also on hand with a selection of real books about a variety of mental health-related topics.

And that’s not all…Dining for Change

Leeds NHS and Leeds Partnerships NHS Foundation Trust have also hosted a ‘Dining For Change’ event to engage employers from the city in the issue of mental health. 

Around 50 local business leaders attended and took part in round table discussions hosted by Alastair Campbell and Time to Change Director Sue Baker.  At the end, everyone who attended was asked to make a personal pledge to Time to Change, and a pledge to improve employment practices or work opportunities for people with mental health problems.