Children’s Mental Health Awareness Week is next week. We encourage you to explore these resources and information from the National Federation of Families. The theme of this year’s script is Flip the Script! You can join the Federation for Flip the Script Live on May 4 at 1 PM central time. And there’s still time to submit your own Flip the Script! video before this Friday’s April 30 deadline.
Flipping the Script is “an opportunity to change hearts, minds, and attitudes regarding mental health” and to support our children in learning these concepts:
“1. That caring for their mental health is a vital part of living a healthy, fulfilling life.
2. That experiencing mental health challenges during their lifetime is not uncommon (1 in 5) and that it is not just ok, but it is important, to ask for help when they do.
3. To offer acceptance, support and respect for others who have mental health challenges in their lives and communities.”
At Families as Allies, we’ve been talking about the best ways to support each other and our children by Flipping the Script. We’ve repeatedly come back to the idea of Flipping the Script from a mental health system that has to be sought out and sometimes puts huge burdens on families to find services that may not be that helpful to a system of care that integrates responsive services and supports into the places where children already are. We want to Flip the Script from emphasizing that people shouldn’t struggle with stigma to emphasizing that systems should strive to not be stigmatizing. We want to Flip the Script from mental health awareness to acceptance of all children (and adults) who have mental health challenges.
You can check out our Flip the Script video here.
Throughout May we will be looking at ways to work together to Flip the Script and sharing ways some of our partners and friends are thinking about or are already Flipping the Script. We’d love to hear your ideas too. You can call us at 601-355-0915 or email info@faams.org.
