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Mental Health Collective Advocacy Project

Daniella Clark is the Collective Advocacy worker for Advocacy Service Aberdeen. "Since starting in February 2009 I have spent time visiting and introducing myself to various groups and at community ward meetings within Cornhill hospital."

"I was asked by service users to put across their opinions on the NHS Grampian tobacco consultation. To do this I visited various wards within Cornhill and also some of the mental health groups in Aberdeen and gathered people’s views on smoking within hospital and its grounds. I then wrote a report containing this information to NHS Grampian."

"I am interested in hearing people’s views on the services they receive or what improvements could be made or if you as group have had a positive experience you would like to share."

Read the Smoking Report here.

What is collective advocacy?

Collective advocacy is about people with similar experiences getting together to try to change things for the better. For example:

• It can enable people to raise awareness and influence service planning and provision.

• By making use of their shared experiences they can have a much stronger collective voice and be much more influential than they can as individuals.

How collective advocacy works

Collective advocacy supports people who use, or have used mental health services by:

• Ensuring that people who use mental health services have an opportunity to have a say in the way that services are planned, provided and evaluated.

• Encouraging partnerships between service users and the people, who plan, purchase and provide mental health services.

• Providing a collective voice by addressing difficulties that service users are encountering with any aspect of their care and treatment, while affected by mental health illness.

Challenging stigma and discrimination

• Collective advocacy aims to challenge the stigma and discrimination that surrounds mental illness wherever it may be found.

• By challenging perceptions, attitudes and by educating people, ignorance, fear and mistrust can be overcome and people will no longer feel excluded.

• It is the aim of collective advocacy to achieve this by supporting people whom have suffered stigma and discrimination and by being proactive in challenging perceptions and attitudes.

The Collective Advocacy Forum

This is an online forum where people affected by mental illness can share their views, stories and ideas on the services provided in Aberdeen. It gives you the opportunity to give your point of view to a supportive network of people without having to meet in a group. It is a way of keeping up to date with government and local consultations affecting mental health and having your say.

Find out more and join the forum here. We hope you will find membership a positive and enjoyable experience that adds to your ability to give and receive support.