Speak Your Mind

SYP’s 2016/17 national campaign, Speak your Mind, focused on raising awareness of mental health, empowering young people to talk positively about mental health, and calling for accessible, high quality mental health services and information for all of Scotland’s young people.

It addressed three main themes:

• Prevention: Working to prevent mental health problems before they arise.
• Early Intervention: Recognising early warning signs of mental health problems and knowing how to positively intervene before they reach a critical stage.
• Services and Support: Improving the quality of services and support for young people with mental health problems.

Campaign Objectives: 

1. To increase young people’s awareness and understanding of the issues associated with mental health.
2. To encourage the use of a common language in order to promote positive conversations, and tackle stigma associated with young people’s mental health.
3. To identify young people’s awareness and experience of mental health information and services for young people across Scotland.
4. To advocate for high quality mental health service and information provision for all of Scotland’s young people, with supporting guidance on best practice for service providers

Our Generation’s Epidemic

MSYPs consulted young people all across Scotland through a research survey aimed at capturing their capturing their experience and awareness of mental health services and information. These findings were analysed in our report Our generation’s epidemic.

Speak your Mind colouring book

On World Mental Health Day 2016, MSYPs and other young people drew images that examined what mental health meant to them, and their response to the findings of Our generation’s epidemic. 

Mental Health Action Plan Toolkit

Recommendation 3 in Our generation’s epidemic calls for every school, college, university, and youth group to implement a Mental Health Action Plan which promotes mental health conversations and support. This toolkit has been designed with SYP’s Education and Lifelong Learning Committee to help education establishments do just that!