Educate Your Community
Reach out. Inform educators, health providers, and other members of your community who play significant roles in the lives of those living with mental illness. Next time you go for a visit to your primary care physician or take your child to the pediatrician, talk to the doctor or nurse practitioner about the role mental health plays in the whole health picture. Attend a PTA meeting and find out what systems are in place for students living with mental illness.
Be an ambassador of respect, understanding, and change for the public at large. Get the anti-stigma message out to your local business owners: health clubs, beauty salons, restaurants, etc. Share what you know. People really do want to be informed. Even if they don't embrace the message right away, by bringing them the facts, you lay the groundwork for change.
Charlotte Bronte wrote, "Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education; they grow there, firm as weeds among rocks."
