"No one can whistle a symphony. It takes an orchestra to play it"
...said Halford Luccock, and we agree with him. We are enormously proud to announce an expansion of our team, and warmly welcome Dr Ali Cooper and Dr Helen Taylor to our community leadership. The anti-stigma and peer empowerment work we do at in2gr8mentalhealth is whole systems work, Helen and Ali will be helping us to reach into the many layers of that work. If the different pillars of the mental health scene and the public were parts of an orchestra, we make sure we are playing to the tune of each of them.
We actively employ only mental health professionals with lived experience of mental health difficulties, because this embodied knowledge is vital to understanding our peer and systems work and we value it highly. Helen and Ali speak more about their experiences on our 'Meet The Team' page, but we will leave you with a couple of short quotes:
Ali: "When I first came into contact with in2gr8mentalhealth, I was full of fear, trepidation and shame. It felt a huge risk to talk about my own experiences. But I found an accepting safe space to share common themes within our experiences. in2gr8mentalhealth has been an important part of my re-building and now I feel able to contribute to a growing movement to raise awareness and give hope to people who maybe suffering alone."
Helen: "I am excited to be part of the team here at in2gr8mentalhealth. I am passionate about stamping out toxicity in our systems and working to eradicate shame and stigma around human distress. More than anything, though, this is a place where I can finally bring my whole self to work, it is valued and welcome, and I love that."
You can find out more about our mentoring, training and consultancy services here.
You can view our 'in conversation with' series on our website here. We speak to international mental health professionals with lived experience of mental health difficulties to destigmatise, value and support.
Thank you for reading about our work.