Mental Health Awareness Week starts on the 10th October – 16th October 2011

The slogan for this year is “GET IN THE GAME, TRAINING FOR YOUR HAPPINESS”

Research tells us that there are five simple strategies that anyone Continue Reading »

Business Forum on Mental Health Chamber Luncheon

Mental Health Awareness Week, October 2010

 NZ Fashion Icon and entrepreneur Denise L’Estrange-Corbet was keynote speaker at the second annual Business Forum on Mental Health Luncheon held at Trailways Hotel on 7^th October 2010, with over 60 attendees from local businesses and the health and social services.  This was part of the regular WHK Chamber monthly luncheons sponsored and hosted by the Chamber of Commerce to ensure business owners are aware of the key issues facing their business, and built on the successful luncheon hosted by the Business Forum and the Chamber of Commerce in 2009.

 Denise L’Estange-Corbet, and Andrew Bridge from WORKSTAR (representing The Business Forum on Mental Health), presented the advantages to businesses of improving mental health and well being, and  identified ways in which employers can make effective changes in their business practice to guard against stigma and discrimination relating to mental illness. 

 Sponsorship was obtained from The Mental Health Foundation, Tasman District Council and Ramazzini Health and Safety. This greatly assisted Health Action Trust who contributed the majority of project funding.

05th October to the 11th October 2009

WALK FOR WELLBEING WITH STEVE GURNEY
Community joined Steve Gurney and Aubrey Quinn on Tahuna Beach for an exhilarating walk before work on Thursday 8th October.   Gaye Evans provided a fun fitness session, and we were entertained by young people from DARNZ Hip-Hop Salsa.

Our Mental Health Promotion Contract is funded by the Ministry of Health and runs until July 2010. Our work is framed by the following documents:

• The Ottawa Charter http://www.who.int/hpr/NPH/docs/ottawa_charter_hp.pdf
• Te Pae Mahutonga, a model for Maori Health Promotion http://www.pha.org.nz/documents/tepaemahutonga.pdf
• And of course the Treaty of Waitangi.

There is no health without Mental Health

Mental Health is more than the absence of mental illness: it is vital to individuals, families and societies.

Mental Health is described by WHO as: …a state of well being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.

In this positive sense of mental health is the foundation for well being and effective functioning for an individual and for a community. This core concept of mental health is consistent with it’s wide and varied interpretation across cultures.

Mental Health is everyone’s business.

 Mental Health Promotion says that mental health is our greatest asset, something that is at the heart of every person’s existence.

We all have mental health issues, and most of us are likely to experience a period of incapacitating mental or emotional upset at some time. How we label this, and how we conceptualise it, makes a lot of difference to how we think about ourselves at those times and how we are treated by others.

The state of our mental health is a matter of paramount concern to everyone. Mental Health Promotion  sees mental health as something that can be developed, enhanced, built and brought to a state of excellence by anyone, although some can admittedly be ‘further back’ on the scale of mental healthiness at a given point in time. The enhancement of everyone’s mental health is one of the most important tasks on the planet.

And there is no doubt that the planet currently needs Mental Health Promotion. More than ever before, we are living in potentially apocalyptic times. Global warming, environmental calamities, new diseases, terrorism, war, urbanisation, overpopulation, peak oil prices, human rights abuses, water and food shortages, continuing poverty and inequity, globalisation, corrupt governments – all these add up to a very stressful world for the majority.

Depression is already the biggest single disease entity in the world, which probably arises from continuous stress combined with a sense of hopelessness. But it’s not just depression that is big – in industrialised countries five of the top six disease categories are mental rather than physical health ones.¹ Yet it is taking the world’s experts a while to catch up with this reality. While obesity, diabetes and other physical diseases capture the health limelight, mental health issues are actually much more important and common.

We need look no further than Aotearoa to recognise that there is an urgent need for more resources to be put into Mental Health Promotion. New Zealand struggles like many countries with aspects such as youth suicide, violence, domestic violence, child sexual abuse, homicide, teen pregnancies, gambling harm, and a variety of others.

Mental health promotion is about building capacity, connectedness, a sense of control, community and culture. We need a whole new paradigm, a whole new way of thinking about mental and social health – and then the real revolution will begin. This is the revolution of mental healthiness, happiness and people being decent to each other.

In Aotearoa, mental health is a taonga, a treasure.

¹  Lopez, A, Mathers, C, Ezzati, M, Jamison, D, Murray, C (2001) Global and regional burden of disease and risk factors 2001: systematic analysis of population health data. The Lancet 367, 1747-1757

Adapted from the World Health Organisation http://www.who.int/features/qa/62/en/index.html and John Raeburn’s editorial on the NZ Mental Health Foundation Website: http://www.mentalhealth.org.nz/newsletters/view/article/12/121/summer-07-08/

For further information about mental health promotion in the Nelson region, please contact:

Sue Bateup

Mental Health Promoter

Health Action Trust Nelson

Tel 03 5482798 ext 5

sue@healthaction.org.nz