Photo - Leeds Uni - Gladiators - The Mind Matters fest.

I was at Leeds University today for The Mind Matters day festival supported by The Mind Your Head campaign (which you can find more out about on the front of the website)

The Mind Matters day is a student led day which hopes to roll out to higher eduction through out Leeds - maybe beyond.  

I’ve noticed how in the last year there has been a change in connection with education and mental health services.  I began a year and a half ago wondering how to plug in and by the end of last year IMH have been increasingly approached by higher and further education students, teachers, lecturers and strategists in a variety of different ways.   There’s a lot we can learn from each other. 

I’ve also noticed how in the last few posts how much I’ve mentioned how excited I am by changes.  Today I’m feeling different.  I’m feeling tired. 

There’s another shift on it’s way - this time it’s not online related.  It’s a shift in Recovery focused work.  The emphasis is beginning to land more squarely on ‘Mental Wellbeing’  Which makes sense.  Recovery implies a ‘something’ has happened that requires Recovery (however that is defined).  Mental Wellbeing covers more than Recovery - it’s around prevention as equally.  It makes things bigger and it heads things into the ‘wellbeing world’ rather than keeping things in the ‘mental health’ world. 

But this has implications for thinking on this in terms of 2.0 work. 

I also just received back an Evaluation by Iona Preston on a piece of work done by two other Leeds Met Students - Mark and Natalie at IMH.  This work was the tough beginning of web2.0 and mental health work that has been the basis of thinking here about this subject.  I’ve found it tough reading.  Because we struggled all the way through the collaboration.  And Iona has kept detailed and clear records and implications of this on all of us individually and collectively.  My feeling on it is that it’s an excellent piece of work and will be a source of reference for a long time to come.  It also marks the first step in a mountain climb of a journey and is enabling me to see how far things have come and will continue to do so.  The reality is that looking at difficulties and where things didn’t ‘work’ is more useful than what does at times.  But that’s not easy is it?  But then, I don’t remember anyone saying mental health information development work was going to be easy - challenging, innovative and stimulating.  Certainly.  But easy.  Well.  Not today anyway.

I’ll make the document available shortly on our website.  It’s thought provoking, real and I hope interesting from an outside perspective.