LOCAL HERO SPOTLIGHT - Nathan Jackson
When Rhian from Alexanders met Nathan from The Mental Health Monster (Virtually). With Mental illness being a topic that is close to our hearts. Rhian from Marketing got in touch with Nathan Jackson who created the Mental Health Monster. A petition to make Mental Health a compulsory subject in schools.
Mental illness is an intangible thing that can be all but impenetrable to those who don't experience it. With Mental illness being a topic that is close to our hearts. Rhian from Marketing got in touch with Nathan Jackson who created the Mental Health Monster. A petition to make Mental Health a compulsory subject in schools.
What is Mental Health Monster and how did it begin?
"Mental Health Monster began with a petition to ‘Make Mental Health Education Compulsory in Schools’ that was set up on World Mental Health Awareness day in October 2019. It came out of anger really because I was scrolling through my social media feeds and seeing countless posts about awareness and mental health in general. Whilst awareness is wonderful, it led me to wonder how it was at an all time high yet the amount of people falling victim to the mental health monster was not decreasing. It is about mental health education as early intervention and keeping the mind healthy before mental health difficulties can creep in.
Mental Health Monster is based on my personal experiences with mental health, from losing an uncle as he unfortunately lost his battle with mental illness to dealing with my monster; anxiety. I’d received a lot of help with this and found a lot of educational resources on what I could do to help myself and how it could be applied to benefit others.
Combining this with my experiences listening and helping others through their struggles since a young age, I began to realise how important that education on such issues can be. Therefore, I made the conscious decision to fight for everyone to receive the education that I was lucky enough to have and more.
At Mental Health Monster we have three main aims:
· Fight for mental health education in the school curriculum.
· Bring mental health considerations to new audiences through ‘unorthodox’ methods.
· Promote the importance of maintaining a healthy mind and knowing how to do so.
Currently, I believe that mental health is not a school subject yet because we’re at the early stages of a new understanding and approach. Whilst there have been amazing foundations and research doing ground-breaking work for many years, the knowledge and findings are only just beginning to enter our daily lives. As well as this, I think that stigma around mental health has limited the progress of education. People seem to see it as this massive scary topic that needs to be approached carefully and tip-toed around.
I don’t see it this way. We all have mental health and consequently we all must keep on top of it, whether your mind is healthy or not. Teachers these days have a lot on their plates as well as caring for the wellbeing of their pupils, so mental health as a subject in its own right will help to address this. With mental health education we can give every pupil the best chance at having a happy and healthy life.
The Mental Health Monster Achievements
So far, with Mental Health Monster we have had a huge reach on social media and well over 2,000 signatures on our petition. But the numbers of likes and shares don’t matter to me as much as the conversation. The amount of people that have been inspired to open up and share their experiences both publicly and privately has been really encouraging. I’m so lucky to have been able to facilitate the mental health conversation and get people considering mental health where they may not have beforehand.
Alcohol and Mental Health
For example, people may only think about the negative relationship between alcohol and mental health. But we tried to flip that on its head in trialling Mental Health Monster beer mats in 7 Aberystwyth pubs earlier this year, to great success. We looked at pubs as a place of conversation and the perfect place to talk about mental health, whether good or bad.
More personal achievements have included meeting with the Welsh Minister for Education to present my case and a few public endorsements from some influential figures. Over the next few months we have some exciting projects in the pipeline so definitely look out for those!
The Petition
Join the movement by signing the petition and checking out our Twitter, Instagram and Facebook pages. For how long are we going to keep just placing a water bucket under the ‘leaking roof’? We have to stop running from the Mental Health Monster. Mental health education is the way to do that. Thank you Alexanders for your continued support."
Sign the petition here, it takes less than 30 seconds!
Nathan works tirelessly to raise awareness for mental health support within our community and to our local schools and young people, and is the pioneer of the Mental Health Monster Facebook and internet page that provides constant help, support, and advice that is truly invaluable. During this time it is important that you look after your mental health too.
Thank you Nathan and the team.
If you would like to get involved and speak to Rhian about your campaign then please contact her on rhian@alexanders-online.co.uk
Best wishes,
The Alexanders Team.