Yesterday, I was unexpectedly caused to have succession of lovely flashbacks to November of last year, when I was absolutely proud as punch to win the Mind Digital Media Award 2012. It happened because I hadn’t realised it was the day for announcing the shortlists for the 2013 Awards and I was thrilled to see what was within. The idea of the baton passing on to a worthy winner caused me to reflect on what I said I would do to develop my ideas further and more importantly, to reflect upon how this year’s awards will help more very impactive digital media initiatives, most of them personal ones, to have yet more impact as they attend to “the discrimination and shame that too often attends mental health disorders.” (Stephen FRY).
So you’ll have to indulge me with a reminiscence from last year’s awards and then see who is kicking digital media use in mental health awareness in a totally new direction for 2013 —
You can see the full shortlist for 2013 on the Mind website, but the short-listed entries for digital media are these:
Mad World explores schizophrenia, OCD and bipolar disorder as part of the Channel 4 Goes Mad series. The website enables users to tour inside three very different brains, with real experiences brought to life in binaural audio.
Charlotte writes about her experience of being a mother, partner, worker, woman and service user with bipolar disorder, including recent accounts of ATOS and the Work Capability Assessment. You can follow @BipolarBlogger on Twitter.
A free online mentoring service for people with mental health problems. You can follow @BlurtAlerts on Twitter.
A personal account of bipolar disorder, written with humour and sincerity. You can follow @brain_opera on Twitter.
Through this blog May Gabriel shares her experience of adolescent depression, and encourages followers to speak out. Her twitter campaign has over 12,000 followers and is a constant support to many other teenagers. You can follow @itsokcampaign on Twitter.
I’m looking forward to seeing who wins, but as with last year, all the shortlisters are doing much to get us where we need to be, so already – I applaud the lot loudly and want you to take time to read and access their stuff, as I do.
Winner of the President’s Medal, the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
Winner of the Mind Digital Media Award
All opinions expressed are my own – they do not represent the views of any organisation. (c) Michael Brown, 2013
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Government legislation website – www.legislation.gov.uk
Mental Health Cop 