How to Advocate for Someone with Mental Illness

Advocacy is a powerful tool especially when helping someone navigate mental illness. Advocacy can demonstrate allyship and also be used to help empower people with mental health issues. Taking the time to learn how to advocate for someone with mental illness is a useful and lifelong skill. Listed below are some simple ways to help advocate for someone with mental illness.

  1. Get educated 

    Take the time to learn about mental illness, such as reading blogs, educational resources, and podcasts. Learning about signs, symptoms, and treatment of mental illness can best help you support a loved one or someone you know that is struggling with mental illness. It can also be helpful to learn about others’ lived experiences with mental illness so you can learn how to help others. Learning about mental illness can also help break down stigma and myths. 

  2. Use person-first language

    Try your best to implement person-first language, this puts the person before their disability. An example of person-first language includes “person with a disability” instead of “disabled person.” Using person first language when discussing mental illness is an important practice and helps advocate for a person with a mental illness in a more empowering way. 

  3. Pay attention to policy and politicians that advocate for mental health 

    Stay up to date on current policy and politicians that advocate for mental health. Having these topics on your radar can help increase awareness and is also an important way to advocate. 

  4. Get involved

    Volunteering for a non-profit mental health organization is a great way to give back and help the mental health community. Another way to get involved is to join a support group, this can be helpful if you struggle with mental health, have a loved one who struggles, or you just want to find a way to better support people with mental health struggles. 

  5. Help break the stigma

    Help destigmatize mental health. This can be done by bringing up mental health in conversations, posting on social media, and talking openly about mental health issues. If you feel comfortable, talk about your own experiences with mental health. This can help encourage others to open up about mental health. 

References

https://www.camh.ca/en/driving-change/addressing-stigma 

https://nami.org/Blogs/NAMI-Blog/June-2020/What-Does-It-Mean-to-Be-a-Mental-Health-Advocate

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