Time to Talk Day – 10-minute session
A boy is late to a lesson and his teacher and classmates wind him up about poor timekeeping. Then, to their shock, he stands on his chair and delivers a monologue about the difficulties of living with depression and how making fun of someone for it really doesn’t help. When he stops, there is silence, until a classmate gets up on her chair too.
The film forms part of a PowerPoint presentation, accompanied by guidance notes, to show how easy it is to have conversations about mental health with students. Teachers are encouraged to explain what mental health is and how important it is to talk about it so that those with problems know they are not alone. The film lasts three minutes, then pupils spend another minute talking to the person next to them about how they can look after their own mental health or support a friend. The final minute is for concluding comments and pointing pupils towards further help. The idea is that the session is as straightforward as possible for teachers to deliver, including those who may be nervous about tackling a difficult issue. It is also designed to be flexible, with long and short versions available.
#Maketime – 10 minute session
This YouTube video is produced in the shaky, upbeat style of a film made with friends on a smartphone. Captions invite viewers to meet Adam and his friends, who have been mates for three years. They provide a barrage of statistics on what that has involved – from 8,731 selfies and 1,027 kisses to 316 burnt pieces of toast. It then moves on to sadder figures: 78 days where you felt left out and 1,098 times you wanted to be left alone, before revealing the final information to viewers that three of their classmates will experience mental health problems.
The film provides a way to reflect on friendship and how life moves so fast it is easy not to notice when people are struggling. Accompanying notes give tips about what might make a difference to a friend, and again they can be used flexibly to form part of 10-minute or 20-minute teaching sessions or assemblies.
The Kid and I – interactive story and guide
An online story using animation, speech bubbles and audio, this follows John Wood as he negotiates a normal day at a school sixth form, interacting with his friends, fellow students, a teacher and his mother. Once viewers have finished the story as John, who has experienced a mental health problem, they unlock the chance to play through it as another character, fellow pupil Kaija, and then as his teacher. At regular points in the story players have to choose between two possible reactions by the character they are playing; their choices affect how isolated John feels, monitored by an isolation meter at the corner of the screen. Clicking on an icon elsewhere on the screen allows them to see what is happening to other characters at the same point in the story by seeing their social media posts.
Designed to be used with secondary and sixth form students to give them the chance to see a story through different points of view, the game helps foster an understanding of what mental health problems are and how to show empathy and support. It also guides young people to think about how the things they do and say affect other people. Guidance notes include suggested lesson plans and activity sheets lasting between 10 and 30 minutes to help students explore stigma and discrimination, self-esteem, relationships, emotions and mental wellbeing.
Mental health quiz – myth versus fact
This is one of a set of activities designed to fill a short session or bulk out a longer lesson. It sets out six myths, such as the idea that people with mental health problems are unable to work or that young people just go through ups and downs as part of puberty. It then presents facts that disprove them: we probably all work with someone experiencing a mental health problem and one in 10 young people will experience a mental health problem.
Toolkit on running a campaign in your school
A step-by-step guide to help schools and youth groups set up their own campaigns to end discrimination against people with mental health problems, this includes links to case studies and sample action plans showing what other schools have done. It encourages would-be campaigners to understand the aims and key concepts of Time to Change before recruiting staff and young people to lead the campaign.
It advises about downloading key campaign messages and resources, carrying out a SWOT analysis, identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Then it is time to write and implement an action plan, before evaluating its success. It advises that campaigns should be lead by young people but with support from senior staff and suggests repeating key messages, such as that it is not necessary to be an expert to talk about mental health. Links to assemblies and lesson plans, blogs and vlogs give further ideas about how to encourage young people to talk about mental health. The toolkit also offers downloadable posters, screen savers and cartoons to help promote campaigns, as well as a Leadership and Campaigning Guide. Time to Change is already working with 40 schools across the country that are developing campaigns and the toolkit is aimed at passing on some of the lessons learned about what makes a campaign successful.
