+ Mental Health campaign - Don't Brush it Under the Carpet

The Greater Manchester Older People's Network has launched a brilliant mental health campaign, titled Don't Brush it Under the Carpet, that has been developed with the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership.

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The campaign has been created to raise awareness of self-harm in older people across Greater Manchester. It aims to support older residents who may be depressed and alone and guide them to the right support for them, while raising awareness of the issue of self-harm amongst carers, family members and health professionals.

 

Don't Brush it Under the Carpet has been co-produced by a group made up of representatives from the Shining a Light on Suicide Campaign, Greater Manchester Older People’s Network, Greater Manchester Ageing Hub, health professionals and GMOPN focus groups of older residents.

 

In September we held an online focus group to help us develop this campaign. We shared some of the current information available in Greater Manchester about older people and their mental wellbeing with the focus group. This helped us to understand what messages work best for our campaign, and we decided the most effective ways to share those messages.

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At the focus group, illustrator Tom Bailey joined us to capture participants’ contributions. Take a look at his images below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We continued to develop the campaign through focus groups and launched it in March 2022. 1000 flyers were sent to each local authority in Greater Manchester to be displayed in public spaces such as doctors’ surgeries. Members of the GMOPN Health & Social Care Working Group helped to produce these fantastic flyers - thank you very much to our members for their time and effort throughout the campaign!

 

Below is a flyer that was produced. Gifs were also created for use on social media, play it below.

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