Making Mental Health Everyone's Business: Our Policy Priorities 2024 - 2027

Our key policy priorities for 2024 - 2027 were drafted on the back of internal consultation with our staff and clients. Going forward we will continue to highlight the areas of policy and legislation that require change to ensure better mental health outcomes for all people in Northern Ireland.

The Northern Ireland Executive needs to be more creative in the fight against poor mental health, that’s why by the end of the current mandate MindWise want to see:

• The meaningful integration of community and voluntary sector expertise into a delivery model for the Mental Health Strategy
• Mental health policy-testing across all Executive departments
• Visibly increased department funding for mental health programmes working toward centralised and coordinated goals and outcomes, thereby relieving the existing burden on the Department of Health
• A joined-up and strategic approach to mental health that removes silos and ensures that people can access the specific support they need to help mental health and wellbeing
• An annual Executive working group report highlighting and measuring progress in mental health initiatives across departments which is accessible and communicable to the public

As a charity our vision is a world where mental health and wellbeing is everyone’s business therefore we strongly believe that mental health should be every government department’s responsibility.

We want the Northern Ireland Executive to Wise Up! and Fund Children and Young People’s Mental Health. By the end of the mandate MindWise want to see:

• Adequate funding allocated to crucial interventions around children and young people’s mental health
• Further progress toward the planned Mother and Baby perinatal mental health unit at Belfast City Hospital with increased regionalised support for parents and babies and funding for the community perinatal mental health teams
• Statutory funding for MindWise Talking Therapies (Wise Talking) Wellness and Children Young People programmes as part of the Mental Health Strategy recommendation around Action 17
• The creation of a more integrated and collaborative Youth Mental Health Service
• Progress toward mandatory training for all new teachers on mental health education and early intervention as outlined in the MindWise-commissioned report for the NI Assembly All-Party Group on Mental Health

We want to see a clear realignment in the discussion to move beyond talking about stigma toward proactively challenging discrimination and finding meaningful ways to eradicate it. By the end of the mandate MindWise want to see:

• Better opportunities for people with severe and enduring mental health conditions to find and stay in work where appropriate and feasible
• Statutory programmes for employers with support from MindWise to educate the workforce and explore setting up peer support and mentoring programmes for staff with lived experience of mental health problems
• Impact measurements by Government to demonstrate progress that has been made in ensuring that employers are progressing to being mentally welcoming and accessible to all existing and potential employees
• An increase in understanding across society through educational programmes and awareness campaigns (MindWise) of the severe and enduring impact that discrimination can have on marginalised and underrepresented individuals and the ways in which this can perpetuate and exacerbate poor mental health

Dr Gareth Mulvenna, Policy & Public Affairs Manager - Summer 2024