Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser
WORKING FOR YOU Let’s take this on together
We observed mental health awareness week which gave us all a chance to reflect on our own emotional health and how we react to others who may be struggling.
It’s important that we all look after each other. Ask friends and family how they are feeling and try always to be there to listen if someone needs you.
Suicide is the ultimate tragedy in depression and has lasting effects on family and friends left behind. It is the biggest killer of men under 45 across the UK and this demonstrate the scale of the challenge before us.
There are some fantastic organisations out there doing great work raising awareness and helping people including the Scottish Association for Mental Health (SAMH), Brothers in Arms and, of course, our wonderful NHS.
There are also many local services up and down the country, including Chris’s House which was previously based in my constituency and is now in Wishaw.
Last week, I was delighted to attend at the Coatbridge-based Reach Advocacy and See Me pledge signing event to end discrimination against those with a dual mental health and addiction diagnosis.
I was also pleased to become the first MSP to sign the UK recovery declaration of rights, which I signed at the event; and this week I’ll be leading a Holyrood members’ debate on missing people which can often be intrinsically linked to mental health issues.
There is perhaps no place where our challenge is more stark, though, than with young people – the Scottish Youth Parliament describes mental health as “this generation’s epidemic”.
Any time I am at a school or another youth event, such as at a recent Boys’ Brigade award evening, I always take the opportunity to encourage young people to think about their mental health and remind them there are always people there who care for them. I’m constantly amazed about how open our youngsters are to these conversations and this is a tribute to the fantastic work of our teachers.
This is an issue I’ve also raised in the Scottish Parliament chamber, through questions to the mental health minister, and I have also held a round-table event of the various children’s charities across Scotland.
What I have heard has inspired me to pull together a constituency event. I plan to invite those across services involved in supporting young people to hear contributions and come up with ideas about how we can make things work even better for our young people who need it.
I’ll finish by saying it’s going to be above simple party politics to help solve this issue. This is a problem across the UK, and world as a whole.
Likewise, there may not be just one solution. Medical interventions, addressing poverty and inequality gaps, exercise and diet, meditation, cognitive and spiritual solutions all have an interlinked role and what’s right for one person may be different for another.
What we do know is that talking is good for us. So let’s take care of each other and commit to taking on the challenge of this generation’s epidemic together.
It’s going to be above simple party politics to help solve this issue