Media Trust works in partnership with the media and creative industries to give charities, under-represented communities and young people a stronger voice while helping the media sector to be more responsible and representative.
Headlining Mental Health is a training programme, supporting small mental health organisations to grow their communications.
After an impactful first year reaching 20 organisations across the UK, Gamesys Foundation has provided funding for a second programme cycle that will benefit even more mental health groups.
In 2022, Headlining Mental Health will offer intensive communications strategy and media engagement training to 40 small mental health charities.
The programme will also:
- Co-produce training for mental health groups that puts the needs and views of people with mental health problems at the heart of media coverage
- Provide free communications masterclasses for the wider mental health sector
- Connect mental health charities and media industry leaders for support and learning
- Facilitate peer learning between charities
- Offer mental health charities groups the chance to meet journalists from major media outlets
“Headlining Mental Health has fundamentally increased the awareness of our charity. We can communicate the needs of people in our community and encourage more people to access our services. Additionally, our capabilities and confidence in engaging with the media and communicating our message of support have broadened significantly, enabling us to truly highlight mental health.”
Neath Port Talbot Mind
“The programme has provided us with so much confidence to step out of a safe comfort zone and try new things. We had never written or shared a press release but were desperate for some local coverage. Now we have done it once, we feel really confident about the process and who we want to engage with. We are ready to embrace these opportunities rather than thinking about how to politely decline them!
The programme will help shape everything we do going forward… All our charitable activities will carry an element of Headlining Mental Health within them, whether it’s getting a great photo with informed consent at one of our social groups to support a funding bid or thinking about our audiences in everything that we communicate.”
Improving Lives Nottingham
“We are incredibly grateful to the Gamesys Foundation for their generous support for the Headlining Mental Health programme at Media Trust. Mental health organisations are doing an amazing job as they face an unprecedented demand for their services. Communications play a key role in helping them meet that need – attracting funding, challenging policy, and reminding stakeholders why the work of mental health organisations is vital. We’re delighted to have the opportunity to help even more organisations thrive and grow to meet the needs of their communities.”
Su-Mei Thompson, CEO, Media Trust