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| Founded | 1949 [1] |
|---|---|
| Legal status | Charity |
| Headquarters | Studio 2 197 Long Lane London SE1 4PD [2] |
Region served | United Kingdom |
Chief Executive | Mark Rowland [3] |
| Website | www |
The Mental Health Foundation is a UK charity, whose mission is "everyone deserves good mental health". [4]
The Mental Health Foundation was founded in 1949, as the Mental Health Research Fund, by Derek Richter, [1] a neurochemist and director of research at Whitchurch Hospital. Richter enlisted the help of stockbroker Ian Henderson, who became the chair, while Victoria Cross recipient Geoffrey Vickers became chair of the research committee.
In 1972, the Mental Health Foundation took its current name, shifting its "focus away from laboratory research and towards working directly with—and learning from—people [who] experience mental health problems."
Each year, for a week in May, the Mental Health Foundation leads Mental Health Awareness Week.
Mental Health Awareness Week was first held in 2001, and became one of the biggest mental health awareness events in the world. [5]
| Year | Themes |
|---|---|
| 2013 [6] | Physical activity and wellbeing |
| 2014 [7] | Anxiety |
| 2015 [8] | Mindfulness |
| 2016 [9] | Relationships |
| 2017 [10] | Surviving or thriving? |
| 2018 [11] | Stress: are we coping? |
| 2019 [12] | Body image: how we think and feel about our bodies |
| 2020 [13] | Kindness |
| 2021 [14] | Nature and the environment |
| 2022 [15] | Loneliness |
| 2023 [16] | Anxiety |
| 2024 [17] | Movement |
The green ribbon is the "international symbol for mental health awareness."
The Foundation's green ribbon ambassadors, include: Olly Alexander, Aisling Bea, Olivia Colman, Matt Haig, David Harewood, Nadiya Hussain, Grant Hutchison, Alex Lawther, and Graham Norton.
The movement uses the hashtag #PinItForMentalHealth. [18] [19]
The Foundation's total income for the financial year ending 31 March 2018 was £5.8m. [20]
The Foundation is an incorporated UK charity headed by a board of 12 trustees. Aisha Sheikh-Anene was appointed Chair of the board of trustees in 2020. [21]
The president of the Foundation is Dr Jacqui Dyer MBE [22] and the patron is Princess Alexandra.
Paul Kenneth Burstow is a British former politician who served as the Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament for Sutton and Cheam for 18 years, from 1997 to 2015, when he was defeated by Paul Scully.
The green ribbon can have a variety of symbolic meanings.
Beyond Blue is an Australian mental health and wellbeing support organisation. They provide support programs to address issues related to depression, suicide, anxiety disorders and other related mental illnesses.
The British Heart Foundation (BHF) is a cardiovascular research charity in the United Kingdom. It funds medical research related to heart and circulatory diseases and their risk factors, and runs influencing work aimed at shaping public policy and raising awareness.
Stephen Hale OBE is the Chief Architect of Climate Catalyst, a new organisation established in March 2021 to accelerate action on climate change through building diverse coalitions of businesses, investors, civil society groups and other champions of climate action to influence national governments.
Dame Carol Mary Black is a British physician, academic, specialising in rheumatology. She was President of the Royal College of Physicians from 2002 to 2006, advised the British Government on the relationship between work and health from 2006 to 2016, and was Principal of Newnham College, Cambridge, from 2012 to 2019. She is an expert on the disease scleroderma.
Mental Health Awareness Month has been observed in May in the United States since 1949. The month is observed with media, local events, and film screenings.
The Royal Foundation of The Prince and Princess of Wales is an independent United Kingdom-based charity which supports the non-profit work of the Prince and Princess of Wales. Their projects revolve around conservation, environmental issues, early childhood development, mental health, emergency services, and homelessness.
Kathryn Felice Lampard, Baroness Lampard, is an English former barrister.
Sandro Galea is a physician, epidemiologist, and author. He is the Robert A. Knox professor and dean at the Boston University School of Public Health. He is the former Chair of Epidemiology at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. Dr. Galea is past president of the Society for Epidemiologic Research and an elected member of the American Epidemiological Society. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2012, chairing two of the organization's reports on mental health in the military. He formerly served as chair of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene's Community Services Board and as a member of its Health Board.
Mental Health Research UK is the UK's first charity dedicated to funding research into the causes of mental illness in order to develop better treatments with fewer side-effects.
Vikram Harshad Patel FMedSci is an Indian psychiatrist and researcher best known for his work on child development and mental disability in low-resource settings. He is the Co-Founder and former Director of the Centre for Global Mental Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), Co-Director of the Centre for Control of Chronic Conditions at the Public Health Foundation of India, and the Co-Founder of Sangath, an Indian NGO dedicated to research in the areas of child development, adolescent health and mental health. Since 2024, he has been the Paul Farmer Professor and Chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, where he was previously the Pershing Square Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine. He was awarded a Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellowship in 2015. In April 2015, he was listed as one of the world's 100 most influential people by TIME magazine.
Natasha Jade Devon is a writer, campaigner and broadcaster. She has visited schools and colleges in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, including in Bangkok, The Hague, Shanghai, Kathmandu, Montreux and Taipei, delivering classes and conducting research with teenagers, teachers and parents on mental health, body image and social equality. She has also taken part in campus wellbeing programmes in British universities including Aberystwyth University and City, University of London, and is a trustee for the student mental health charity Student Minds.
David Goldbloom, OC, MD, FRCPC is a Canadian psychiatrist, Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, author, lecturer and mental health advocate. He most recently served from 2003-2022 as the Senior Medical Advisor of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and a psychiatric consultant. He has provided over many years lectures to students, colleagues, and the general public. Goldbloom has received various awards and recognition for his work in Psychiatry and is an honorary member of The College of Family Physicians of Canada.
Mika Simmons is a British actress and film-maker who is known for playing Queen Anora on Dragon Age, the BAFTA winning Falling Apart, and BBC Showtrial, and the award-winning Rain Stops Play and My Week With Maisy.
Marcantonio M. Spada is an Italian-British academic psychologist who has studied the role of metacognition in addictive behaviours and operationalised the constructs of "desire thinking" and the "COVID-19 anxiety syndrome". He is currently Professor of Addictive Behaviours and Mental Health and Dean of the School of Applied Sciences at London South Bank University. He is also editor-in-chief of Addictive Behaviors.
Mermaids is a British charity and advocacy organisation that supports gender variant and transgender youth. It also provides inclusion and diversity training. Mermaids was founded in 1995 by a group of parents of gender nonconforming children and became a charitable incorporated organisation in 2015.
Laverne Antrobus is a British child psychologist. She trained at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust in the 1990s. Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, Antrobus has hosted documentaries and appeared as an expert on the BBC and Channel 5.
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