Time to change?

New evaluation findings from the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London reveal that England's most ambitious anti-stigma programme, Time to Change, is having a positive effect on reducing discrimination towards people with mental health problems.

The overall level of discrimination reported by people who experience a mental health problem has dropped by four percent in the last 12 months. The levels of discrimination people face when searching for a job dropped by 9 percent and there is a six percent reduction in the number of people who report losing their job due to a mental health problem.

Time to Change has been actively campaigning for 18 months in order to tackle the stigma existing within people's knowledge, attitudes and behaviour towards mental health. The programme has a target to achieve a five percent positive shift in attitudes towards mental health problems and a five percent reduction in discrimination levels by 2012.

The new findings back up recent research from the Department of Health which indicates that general attitudes towards people with a mental health problem are slowly beginning to improve in England.

Findings from Attitudes to Mental Illness 2010 show a 2.2 percent improvement in public attitudes from 2008 to 2010, with a significant 1.3 per cent improvement in attitudes from 2009 to 2010, following the start of the Time to Change campaign.

Sue Baker, Director of Time to Change, said: “We have seen some positive improvements over the last year in the acceptance and understanding that people have towards mental health issues. Our challenge is to continue with our work in order to reduce the incidents of discrimination that are still so widely reported by people with mental health problems.

“Nearly nine out of ten people with mental health problems have been affected by stigma and discrimination. Just taking small actions to change the way we respond to the one in four of us who will experience a mental health problem would make a huge difference.”