Stigma and Housing video.

Larry Hochwald speaks to the Staten Island mental health community and elected officials about housing and stigma.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwTIsr18-SM&list=PL82E7BA9ECDF26669&index=4

Mental Health News

The Mental Health News has been providing valuable information empowering recovery for many years. If you have internet access you can view current and past issues free!
Here is a link: http://www.mhnews.org/
They have published articles I have coauthored on Stigma and Employment. Here are the links in case you are interested. The Stigma issue, which was an issue based on recovery, has a powerful and important article about well known actor Joey Pantoliano's personal experiences battling the challenges of depression.
Stigma: http://www.mhnews.org/back_issues/MHN-Summer2009.pdf
Page 20
Employment: http://www.mhnews.org/back_issues/MHN-Summer2008.pdf#zoom=100
Page 19

Apathy....

Here is a link to a post I did not completely agree with. I am more inclined to go along with the LHWRITES comment. Nevertheless, I include the link here because some valid points are considered, the comments are good, and at least this posting was written. I have found one of the most difficult things to combat in the fight against stigma...is the apathy of those affected and involved!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dj-jaffe/mental-illness-awareness_b_309422.html

To make this blog more useful....

I have been working on this blog behind the scenes while writing some new material, and waiting for other contributions. I have created a companion Yahoo Group to house our materials. With Yahoo Groups we can store files of various sizes for viewing by anyone in the blog.
The address of the group is: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mentalhealthantistigma
Once there, to sign in you need a Yahoo ID, which many people have, and if you don;t it is easy tog et and free. You do not need one to participate in the blog, but eventually you may need one to view the larger materials we store there.
If you decide you want to have access to the group as well as to participate in the blog, when you click on the link to get to the Group you will be asked to sign in to Yahoo, and if you do not have an ID you will be asked if you would like to sign up with Yahoo. Then you will be prompted through the sign-up process.

Starting off...Speaking about Anti-Stigma Campaigns.

The anti-stigma presentation at the NYAPRS 25th anniversary conference was a success. The interstate panel on dealing Reducing Stigma in the Community was comprised of Linda Wilson, the executive director of NAMI Staten Island, , Michelle Mullen, MA and Ann Murphy, MA of UMDNJ and myself, Larry Hochwald, this blogs facilitator.

Michelle and Ann said that they would be forwarding some materials from their part of the discussion to post here on the blog. I will be helping Linda to prepare some materials to place on the blog as well. Also, I will begin to place materials from my conference presentation here to help kick off the blog.

I discussed the need for comprehensive anti-stigma campaigning, a lot of it, being done by everyone and anyone involved in behavioral health.

We need to define our campaigning better and we need to remember that there are two general audiences we can target. If we target anybody but our nation's youth, we can only hope to modify and moderate opinions to the point that we can achieve our goals. If we target youth, whose opinions may not be fully formed even if influenced by their parents and teachers, we can hope to affect major change and develop a generation where stigma can be a thing of the past. To illustrate I presented the following chart, to help to show some of the results of some research that I've been involved with. I am attaching it here, whatever part of the post the blog will allow it to.

We need to get across to government agencies that anti-stigma campaigning needs to be a top priority. Stigma affects everything else---housing, employment, everything. The good thing for service providers and private agencies is that anti-stigma campaigns can be effective for your marketing and employee retention initiatives. Anti-stigma campaigns can also increase the need for services, and adherence to treatment. For consumers and providers alike, anti-stigma campaigns can make it easier to manage day to day. We shall examine all of these ideas specifically in separate posts.