New sports and mental health charter

25/03/15 . Blog

The government has joined sports organisations to tackle mental health stigma.

The Sport and Recreation Alliance has launched a new charter committing to tackle the problem of stigma around mental health in sport.

This is good news as the issue of stigma around mental health was highlighted in our Men's Health Manifesto. The manifesto calls for action on stigma around mental health in the workplace and among boys.

The Men's Health Forum has also pubished a men's health manual on mental wellbeing, Beat Stress, Feel Better, and the first best practice guidelines on male mental health.

More information:

 

The Men’s Health Forum need your support

It’s tough for men to ask for help but if you don’t ask when you need it, things generally only get worse. So we’re asking.

In the UK, one man in five dies before the age of 65. If we had health policies and services that better reflected the needs of the whole population, it might not be like that. But it is. Policies and services and indeed men have been like this for a long time and they don’t change overnight just because we want them to.

It’s true that the UK’s men don’t have it bad compared to some other groups. We’re not asking you to ‘feel sorry’ for men or put them first. We’re talking here about something more complicated, something that falls outside the traditional charity fund-raising model of ‘doing something for those less fortunate than ourselves’. That model raises money but it seldom changes much. We’re talking about changing the way we look at the world. There is nothing inevitable about premature male death. Services accessible to all, a population better informed. These would benefit everyone - rich and poor, young and old, male and female - and that’s what we’re campaigning for.

We’re not asking you to look at images of pity, we’re just asking you to look around at the society you live in, at the men you know and at the families with sons, fathers and grandads missing.

Here’s our fund-raising page - please chip in if you can.

Registered with the Fundraising Regulator