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MIND Conference 2009

25th to 26th November

Report by Anon

A Sense of Purpose: MIND service user conference
25th to 26th November

Plenary Session 1: Making the Case for Wellbeing

Paul Farmer, Chief Executive of MIND introduced the conference theme of wellbeing and asked what do we mean and what do we understanding about wellbeing individually, locally and nationally? He also added the importance of MIND’s involvement strategy whereby people with direct experience of mental illness will be more greatly involved in MIND.

Jonathan Naess, founder and director of Stand to Reason opened by talking about funding for mental health treatment: there should be a focus on lobbying for mental health resources, especially increased access to psychological therapy. We should have a public debate on the use of funds for mental health treatment: it was considered not fashionable to spend money on mental health treatment, unlike treatment for cancer which was more within public focus. There should be lobbying by organisations such as MIND for increased funds for the treatment of mental illness, about which there was a misunderstanding. Mr Naess highlighted the importance of counselling services for those affected by mental illness to help marriages and other relationships. Relationship counselling is a positive experience.

Wellbeing meant enjoying a positive and flourishing life. Like recovery wellbeing meant more than the alleviation of symptoms. Recovery was not just a new word to be incorporated in the name changes of psychiatric wards and services. Recovery and wellbeing go together and they ask what makes us well? However there still exists the stigmatised perception of some that people do not get better: service users are not broken, finished and dangerous. The media especially still stereotypes those affected by mental illness: the media should consult service users who should have more influence on television programmes dealing with mental health. Stigma hinders wellbeing. Mr Naess concluded by saying that by 2020 depression will be the second biggest cause of lost working days. There should be a redefinition of the relationship between service user and services: there should be personalisation and an increase in peer to peer support which was of tremendous value. We are at tipping point in the way society views mental health and in the next 5 to 10 years there will be great changes.

Jeff Walker, MIND’s Wellbeing Programme Manager continued by talking more specifically about what we meant by wellbeing. He cited official definitions: the Department of Health defined wellbeing as being healthy, happy, contented, comfortable, and satisfied with one’s quality of life – this had a broader application than just to mental health issues. Happiness also implies resilience. The Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) defines wellbeing in similar terms: income, health, employment, status, relationships, talking frequently to neighbours/being part of the community and – also important – spirituality.

The New Economic Foundation defined 5 ways to wellbeing: connect, be active, take notice, keep learning, give.

Mr Walker explained what the 150 Local MIND Associations (LMAs) do about wellbeing for their members. What do local service users want in terms of wellbeing? Creativity, education courses, employment opportunities, healthy food, complementary therapies. For those in need there was also Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) and Mental Health First Aid. The definition of wellbeing flowed from the service user grass roots. The LMAs considered that local drop ins were not the end point but launch pads into social inclusion. There was a desire to change the LMA image and broaden appeal: MIND was using the wellbeing approach to combat stigma and present a new public image of the LMAs. Rather than create theories about wellbeing the LMAs were more interested in what their users do about wellbeing.

Kevin Lewis of the National Mental Health Development Unit (NMHDU) talked about personalisation and person focused services where he considered we had reached a tipping point. He was personally involved in closing down the long stay mental hospitals but felt that this was still not enough: we must feel well in ourselves and not just be treated for a diagnosis. The current mental health services actually frustrate personalised services. There is much talk about recovery but treatment has not changed. We must begin to think about our whole selves and all of the inter-connected needs and wishes. Service user and doctor must work together and we must not be anti professional psychiatrist. After all, stress and distress can be a cause of cancer. Choice is only part of personalisation. Service users want to learn to contribute and not just be passive recipients of services. Wellbeing is about ensuring positive contact, limiting harmful emotions, looking after the body, engaging with nature and reflecting and learning. Personalisation is important in terms of equality. Equality is not about race it is more entire: there should not be separate racial policies as this shows a failing in social inclusion – there should be something more entire. It is a proven fact that service users benefit when there is more personal control and more individuality. Personalisation makes sense: costs don’t rise and public money is well used. Like direct payments, personal budgets are now under way and are being piloted: we can put money into the hands of the individual in order that they can choose their treatment without altering the cost of treatment. The service user can be given the money to choose the therapy he/she wants.

kevin.lewis [at] nmhdu.org

Plenary Session 2

Making the most of wellbeing – How can it work for me?

Sue Baker, Portfolio Director of the Time to Change campaign, spoke about the efforts of the campaign to combat stigma and how people with mental health problems have been empowered although the general public still have little knowledge of mental health issues.

www.time-to-change.org.uk

Richard Bentall Professor of Experimental Clinical Psychology at Bangor University and author of the books, Doctoring the Mind and Madness Explained said that psychosis was generally viewed as needing ongoing treatment and that severe mental illness had a negative outcome. This view can be challenged as outcomes are more positive than are often thought and one-third of those affected by mental illness recover completely. Interestingly there is little evidence that advances in treatment have led to improved outcomes – there is no evidence that there is improvement over 19th century outcomes. It is also interesting that outcomes to mental illness are much more positive in the developing world – outcomes vary according to domain. There is the implication that the individual has much more influence over his/her wellbeing than do the professionals administering treatment.

Professor Bentall then considered what he called the four existential threats to wellbeing: the threat of mortality (fear of death) – the threat of disorder and unpredictability – the threat of low self esteem (e.g. being poor and living next to neighbours living in a mansion) – the threat to identity. These are the existential threats which cause anxiety, depression, paranoia, anger: mental health services often unintentionally increase and compound these threats. For instance the threat of mortality is enhanced by the over-zealous use of medication with attendant side effects and the poor physical health of those suffering from mental illness is well documented. The threat of disorder and the unpredictable is enhanced by discouraging service users to hope in the future. Low self esteem can be encouraged and feelings of threat to identity are enhanced by experience of stigma. Service users can manage these threats to wellbeing themselves: a healthy life style and reduction in side effects (overcoming the threat of mortality), challenging the threat of disorder by managing relapse into illness. The threat to self esteem is challenged by managing achievable goals, having purpose and positive relationships and the threat to identity is challenge with a challenge to stigma. Richardbentall [at] bangor.ac.uk

Dr Jo Nurse, National Lead for Public Mental Health and wellbeing for the Department of health stated that public mental health and wellbeing is embedded in departmental thinking. The Department of Health concerned itself with how to promote wellbeing across the entire population. She referred to New Horizons – A Public Health Approach - a national vision for 2020 including mental health care. Wellbeing is based on a flourishing population and connected communities which are created through the promotion of wellbeing, resilience and the reduction of inequalities. One in 6 people have a mental disorder and 1 in 6 are flourishing – the rest are somewhere in between, although some with a mental disorder could also be described as flourishing. Wellbeing provides for wider social benefits with less lost work days. The future must also respond to changing needs of an increasingly ageing population. Promoting wellbeing means promoting a feeling of purpose and meaning in life and ensuring a positive start in life – good parenting prevented social violence and promoted friendship.

It is necessary to develop sustainable and connected communities. It is an aim to integrate and interrelate physical and mental health – medical interventions should aim to promote wellbeing as well as good health jo.nurse [at] dh.gsi.gov.uk Ms Nurse suggested that those interested could find the New Horizons website by typing “new horizons” into a search engine. Comments about New Horizons could be sent to newhorizons [at] dh.gsi.gov.uk

Workshop

Welfare Reform – the good, the bad and the ugly presented by Martin O’Kane, author and leading expert on welfare rights, currently based with Derbyshire PCT.

Martin opened by asking us to consider 5 years of welfare reform which introduced Pathways to Work and saw the Disability Employment Advisers (DEAs) appointed to get people off incapacity benefit and back into work. It has also seen the advent of the Employment Support Allowance (ESA) replacing incapacity benefit. Mental health service users in particular have been targeted with access to work and job brokers schemes. It has been a 5 year push to get people back into work.

On the other side of this there has been compulsory attendance to Jobcentre interviews by threatening to curtail their benefit. There has also been benefit sanctions and reduction in benefit. Martin questioned if everyone wanted to work and work was good why did people have to be threatened into finding work? One workshop participant stated that people are penalized if they handle a DEA interview by saying nothing. Martin spoke of a “blame culture”: it was the fault of GPs, mental health professionals and service users that people were not in work.

ESA is substantially less that Incapacity Benefit – the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) has a false sense of spending less. There is also a current idea of “Workfare” whereby people will have to do work for their benefit – this is something to come in the future.

The Jobcentres and introducing mental health co-ordinators for Job Seekers Allowance instead of Incapacity Benefit: mental health service users are being moved to Job Seekers Allowance. If the “vast majority want to work”, why threaten, coerce, and label claimants? There is a contradiction at the heart of benefit reform: there has been an assumption that 2.7 million of claimants can work and yet 2.4 million are claiming incapacity benefit. The DWPs main focus is to reduce the incapacity benefit bill and to this end income support and incapacity benefit have been merged into ESA. They are still trying to reduce the number of the 2.4 million people claiming – so they have so far been unsuccessful.

As far as medical assessments are concerned, these are done by the organization ATOS whose brief it is to reduce the incapacity benefit bill. ATOS were awarded the assessment contract on the basis that they would reduce the numbers of claimants. In order to handle the medical assessment, the service user needs the support of his/her medical professional who is familiar with his/her condition. The DWP is keen on assessments so the service user needs representation. People live in fear of losing benefit – so where is the wellbeing? The DWP decided that incapacity benefit was labeling so they changed to ESA with an emphasis on what people can do rather than can’t do. In the current economic situation, there are now more people on Job Seekers Allowance than incapacity benefit – so who are the jobs to go to?

Martin asked whether the welfare reforms have changed anything. The DWP research itself shows that it has not reduced the numbers of claimants as expected since 2003 and that only 1 in 10 people were still in work 13 months after starting Pathways to Work. The introduction of ESA coincided with economic downturn and rising unemployment. The claiming process has also been centralized so people find it more difficult to claim.

Reduction in benefit levels has reduced in real terms not because of less people claiming and more people in work but because the rates of money people get has been reduced – so they have reduced the bill by paying out less benefit.

DWP figures show that in October 2009 69 per cent of approximately 200,000 people claiming ESA were “fit for work”. Only 10% were not capable of work. It is disturbing to note that out of the 4,900 appeals against the “fit for work” decision 3,300 were upheld in favour of the DWP – only one third of appeals were successful. Also one third of people abandon their claim as assessment is too complex and humiliating an experience – they go onto Job Seekers Allowance instead. Claims for Job Seekers Allowance are therefore rising. Service users can challenge the assessment but they need the representation of medical professionals.

Martin continued with an assessment of the welfare reforms. He asked: can the “performance target” culture i.e. getting a maximum number of people off benefit and into work, achieve positive results? So far the evidence suggests no. He asked whether mental health assessments were appropriate, especially when the assessors aim to get people off benefits thereby predetermining the outcome.

What are the service user’s remedies to the impact of the welfare reform? Martin suggested the following: (1) get medical and welfare rights representation (2) use the complaints system (3) get accurate information (4) make contact with the DEA as mental health service users need to cultivate a relationship with the DEAs – they need to inform, educate and advise them on mental health issues and situations – “Keep your friends close – but keep your enemies closer”

The centralization of assessments has done damage to local relationships. There was also a collection of service users’ stories of the negative impact of the welfare reforms.

Martin said the future held the following: all incapacity benefit transferred to ESA – more compulsory participation – more “workfare” i.e. people having to work for their benefit.


Answering general questions from workshop participants, Martin talked about DLA and said that going back to work is not a significant change of circumstances or change of disability support needs – you are not required to report going to work. He further referred to a book of which he was co-author entitled Claiming Disability Living Allowance – a guide for people using mental health services. This can be downloaded on: www.ceimh.bham.ac.uk

Workshop

Advocating Advocacy presented by William Snagge, Local Mind Specialist Support Team Manager with help from Shirley Gray of Brighton MIND and Jeff Walker, MIND’s Wellbeing Programme Manager.

The workshop was aimed at people who wanted to refresh their understanding of advocacy and set out to explore the links between advocacy and wellbeing and how advocacy fits in with wellbeing. William started by considering what advocacy is and what it is not. Participants discussed how advocacy helped the individual to explore choices and options and how it promotes and triggers autonomy and self-help, supporting individuals to speak for themselves. Advocacy challenges discrimination and promotes and defends individuals’ rights. Advocacy is not a service to investigate complaints or an advice service. Advocates are not support workers or befrienders or home helps – they cannot give financial advice or make decisions for individuals. William then asked participants to consider there various types of advocacy: peer advocacy, where there is an equal relationship between advocates and those seeking the service. There is independent mental health advocacy which assists those affected by the terms of the mental health act. Ideally there is self-advocacy where the individual is empowered to speak for him/herself. Participants also considered group advocacy or collective advocacy where a group of individuals with similar experiences meet together to put forward shared views. The most familiar forms of advocacy were formal, professional advocacy provided by a dedicated advocacy service linked to psychiatric hospitals and community care and also legal advocacy given by paid professionals with specialist legal knowledge. The workshop concluded by asking how might advocacy and wellbeing interrelate? Advocates are ambassadors of wellbeing and have a strong wellbeing role – advocacy is also about the empowerment of the individual and it can support self-esteem and status of the individual. Advocacy is regulated by the Advocacy Consortium UK. Useful references:

Action for Advocacy www.actionforadvocacy.org

UK Advocacy Network www.u-kan.co.uk

MIND Conference 2009

MIND National Conference: Where to with wellbeing?
26th – 27th November

Opening Session: Wellbeing and the modern world

Sophie Corlett, MIND’s Director of external relations introduced the session by asking what we meant by wellbeing – wellbeing was not a distraction of the mind – wellbeing meant being happy, healthy, contented, comfortable, and satisfied with one’s quality of life. Wellbeing is material, physical, social and emotional. There is a right to wellbeing and for people to live full lives and play a full part in society. People would rather be physically and mentally well and prevention is better than cure. Also people must have the resilience to survive life. In mental health services the wellbeing of the individual is quite a new concept.

Dr Sandra Carlisle of the Public Health section of Glasgow University asked delegates to consider the relationship between wellbeing and society, wellbeing and the modern world, wellbeing and the individual, socially and globally. What is wellbeing? It is the pleasant life – feeling pleasure and happiness – life satisfaction and the good life – a meaningful life, fulfilling potential and enjoying the favourable judgment of others – feeling good and functioning well. Dr Carlisle referred to Neff’s dynamic model of wellbeing: good feelings – happiness, joy, affection, satisfaction. The more choices we have the happier we are: changes in choice are reflected in changes in what we purchase materially. However the level of happiness has remained static since the 1950s in spite of increased wealth. There is a paradox with wellbeing: wealth just buys status – while life gets better materially people can feel worse i.e. less happy. Indeed those who have the most materially are troubled by trivial choices – “affluenza.” People are misled into thinking that happiness comes solely through things: love and emotional fulfillment etc get neglected. What does happiness mean: happiness is not a goal but a life consequence – happiness is to be content with what we have. Materialism however seems more important than spirituality. Money does not make us happy as a society but the individual needs some measure of his/her success. There is pressure to achieve and bring in an income. There is also pressure in the academic world to attract people into study and to have things published. Life in the consumer culture means that the individual tries to find happiness through things – there is an abandonment of traditional meaning and social values: meaning and values come through consumerism.

The economy depends on unhappiness to make people need things. Society seems not to value people but seems to value possessions: we are all trapped in the cycle of consumerism – we are individually minded and not socially minded. Warfare and poverty destroy wellbeing and consumerism is threatened by the coming oil shortage and global warming – because levels of global consumption will not be sustainable in the near future we are facing unavoidable changes. Good mental health and wellbeing are essential to coping with coming global changes – we will have to learn to live differently and still sustain mental health and wellbeing

Panel Discussion

Dr Carlisle then joined a panel to discuss various questions. The other panel members were Jim Symington, National mental health development unit, Jeff Walker, MIND’s wellbeing programme manager, Sathnam Sanghera, a journalist and GP Dr Liz Miller. The following are some of the comments made about wellbeing:

Wellbeing and money are linked and status and self-esteem improves with employment. However, how can we support people back into work without damaging their wellbeing, especially as meaningful work is hard to find for people who have experienced mental illness and they can be forced back into work. People are unwell because of work. A structured return to work is helpful – a gradual return makes haste slowly. However there is less flexibility about this in the lower end of the job market. One member of the panel stated that even a bad job is better than no job – a statement which was subsequently challenged by several delegates in the course of the discussion. Many good things come out of work – volunteering for instance was good for wellbeing. Should there be compulsory volunteering for those unemployed?

Employers should treat employees with respect and compassion; they should appreciate their contribution. More money is lost through low productivity at work than absenteeism.

Rachel Perkins has been asked by the government to review the barriers to why people with experience of mental illness are not getting back into work. Increased wellbeing also means that there should be changes to the benefit system.

Will an increased focus on social care and personal health care lead to a loss of services? Healthcare and wellbeing are not an easy equation – they don’t go hand in hand – there are more socio-economic and psychological factors to consider. Wellbeing is more than just providing a service as we should all promote wellbeing socially. Physical health problems lead to depression so physical and mental health are both linked and should be brought together. People want alternatives to drug therapy. Wellbeing is promoted less in the public sector of health and education – more wellbeing is promoted in the private sector. Wellbeing has a wider meaning than recovery but they are both interrelated.

It is interesting to note that in the league of countries designated with the most happiness and wellbeing, the country at the top of the list is Iceland.


Day Two: 27th November 2009

Plenary Session

“Can traditional mental health services be part of a wellbeing approach?”

Paul Farmer introduced the session by questioning the role of mental health services – how can they engage in a wellbeing approach and if not should there be evolution or revolution within mental health services?

Professor Peter Beresford (Brunel University): No - mental health services had nothing to do with wellbeing and they can’t treat, care and support the service user. It is better for service users to be in a forensic service because there is more support and investment than within standard psychiatric wards which are unsupported, lonely places: there is poor quality of services and lack of safety on wards with a high dependence on drug therapy. Wellbeing is beyond mental health services. The lion’s share of mental health investment is in medication, drug treatment and hospitalization. The new approach of personalized treatment is a smoke screen for financial cuts. Extending into other areas, Professor Beresford pointed to the fact that the government wanted service users back into employment at any cost in order to save on the benefit bill: the service user was given the choice of paid work or nothing at all: this policy has nothing to do with social inclusion and wellbeing. Anti-stigma is more than just an advertising campaign: it is up to the individual to challenge the institutions that reinforce stigma especially the tabloid media. Service user involvement should be real and genuine – more than just a PR exercise.

John Hopton, senior lecturer in social work at Manchester University said that wellbeing has indeed always been involved in the traditional treatment of the mentally ill and was currently involved in modern mental health services. However whilst there were faults with services one should not throw the baby out with the bath water. There are always those people who are stressed and in distress and wellbeing seem difficult for them to attain. Modern mental health services involve the use of medication and social therapy which is part of the wellbeing approach. There is uniqueness to each individual’s way of managing his/her illness. However managing distress solely in a setting of drug therapy is not conducive to wellbeing and the long stay hospitals do not produce wellbeing. There must be a combination of treatments to be compatible with wellbeing: oral medication, access to green space – a nice pleasant hospital environment, the value of interpersonal relationships, therapeutic activity and compassionate understanding. Traditional mental health services still have a role in service user wellbeing.

Nina Quinlan, wellbeing programme manager, Leeds University expanded the debate by talking of organizational wellbeing. Do employers have a responsibility for wellbeing of employees? Historically and currently employee welfare is not entirely altruistic – it has another side. Employers should feel responsibility for employee welfare and there are benefits to improving employee mental health as mental illness is one of the biggest reasons for missing work or being excluded from work. Unstimulating work is bad for mental health. There are currently NICE public health guidelines for promoting mental wellbeing in the workplace: however there should be an individualized approach – not one size for all.

It is the responsibility of employers to destigmatise and include the mentally vulnerable as exclusively employing the mentally resilient disadvantages those who are already socially excluded due to mental health problems – there is segregation between the mentally resilient and the mentally vulnerable which is compounded by the exclusion of the mentally vulnerable in favour of the resilient.

Traditional mental health services have a part in the wellbeing approach: but only if they are embedded within a culture of openness, equity, empowerment and destigmatisation.


Panel Discussion

In the ensuing panel discussion, the following comments were made:

Peter Beresford pointed out that the government’s talk about wellbeing means employment and a reduction in the benefit bill. The government’s ideal is that people are poor although being in work and not on benefit. Employers are also taking less responsibility for their employees: the workplace is a cruel and nasty place with little to do with wellbeing.

It is the government themselves who are a threat to the individual’s sanity and wellbeing because of their perpetration of war and persecution of the needy.

Other members of the panel commented that wellbeing is not something paternalistic whereby people can give up personal responsibility.

We should have artists on psychiatric wards to transform them and make them more therapeutic and conducive to wellbeing.

There should be more open access to services – which should be individualistic and not something the individual is programmed into i.e. the individual should not have to fit in with the service it should be the other way around.

Workshop

Wellbeing in the workplace: making the workplace mentally healthy.

Presented by Alex Tamboursides and Pru Sly of MIND Workplace.

The workshop aimed to cover what employers can do to create a mentally healthy workplace, have happier staff and save money in doing so. Mental health problems currently cause more lost working days than any other health problem excepting back pain. Should current trends persist, mental illness will soon be the single largest cause of absenteeism – yet a considerable number of employers still feel that mental illness is not a problem within their business.

Lost productivity due to poor mental health management incur an overall annual cost to employers of nearly £26 billion, including absenteeism, presenteeism and recruitment costs. Presenteeism itself - where people still attend work knowing they are becoming unwell – and the attendant loss in productivity – is twice as prevalent and costly as absenteeism. Presenteeism is the biggest cost of poor mental health. Five million people in the working population have had a mental health problem – half of which are on the brink of losing their job because of mental illness. The proportion of people with mental health problems who are out of work is about the same. The government’s Pathways to Work scheme has not worked for service users, nor has the so called “fit note” i.e. stating what work a person is capable of in spite of disability.

There is currently a lack of initiatives focusing on creating healthier workplaces. Mentally healthy and happy workplaces result in reduced absence, increased productivity and greater customer satisfaction and therefore create higher profit margins. MIND Workplace had a mission to improve the mental health of British business.

The group considered what was meant by good mental health: it was more than the absence of a disorder – it was coping with stress and leading an active, productive and fruitful life, contributing to society. What was mental illness: it was more than symptoms and a lack of capacity – it was more than a temporary disorder – it was also a life problem creating problems at work.

The mentally unhealthy workplace is characterized by a bullying and emotionally unintelligent management; stigma whereby people have to hide their mental health problems; lack of support and awareness of mental health. Characteristics to be seen in a mentally healthy workplace included a strategic and proactive approach to wellbeing; a place where staff feel comfortable about disclosing mental health issues; mental health literacy; consistent supportive line management and peer support and simple, clear guidelines for managers around mental health management.

The MIND Workplace initiative had a mission to consult with British management about mental health issues, report back and make recommendations, and implement a better approach to mental health issues.

Key Note Speaker:

Dr Anthony Seldon, Political Historian and Headmaster of Wellington College, accompanied by three students.

Dr Seldon opened by talking about wellbeing in education. Education can be both a positive and negative experience as there is evidence that schools are not what they should be. Dr Seldon said that Wellington College was taking the lead in wellbeing in education. He referred to a book about wellbeing by Ian Morris: Learn to ride Elephants. A bad grounding in school is not a good grounding for life. Currently most schools are exam factories; they are uncreative, rigid and non-individualistic; they can humiliate their students; there is bullying; there is little emphasis on the development of real life skills; they promote conformity and process children like a factory. With this in mind we must ask why we are not becoming a better nation.

Wellington College promotes for its students a good, meaningful, and fulfilling life, as schools have to be kind places, shaping children for life. If there is no love and stability in the child’s family life, school becomes even more important as a safe, secure place. School can be remedial for those coming from a damaged background. School can also help with shaping the individual’s uniqueness.

Wellington runs conferences about wellbeing and happiness. For their students there are wellbeing lessons focusing on various aspects of every day life e.g. temptation. Wellbeing in daily life and life skills are taught in fortnightly lessons, which include meditation/relaxation techniques and a support network to help students cope with stress. There is also an emphasis on sport to keep students happy and get a feeling for teamwork.

An influence on teaching methods at Wellington is the American writer, Marty Seligman, President of the American Psychological Association and a writer on depression. He promotes positive psychology with a focus on good, happy and meaningful life. There is nothing selfish about being happy.

Wellington gives kind leadership which does not humiliate people. It is an appreciative community where people express appreciation for one another. People do good to feel good.

Dr Seldon said that there is a difference between pleasure and happiness: pleasure is connected with material things and is therefore transitory; happiness connects with the immaterial and therefore endures. Pleasure is all about “Me”, e.g. taking narcotics is selfish and about “Me”. Happiness is about sharing and about opportunities for belonging and being valued.

Social exclusion reduces happiness and that is why nobody should be marginalized: we can never clear our minds about what is said about us by other people.

Physical exercise and healthy living are important to wellbeing: the body looks after the brain.

Dr Seldon referred to Lord Richard Layard, the so-called “Happiness Tsar” who pointed out that the more money people earn beyond a certain point, the less happy people are and indeed more money can make for unhappiness. Gaining more and more material things, does not make for wellbeing. On the other hand happiness and wellbeing are made through trust, quality of life, inclusion, resilience and good self restraint. If you want to change the world, you have got to be the change.

Considering the current state of British education, Dr Seldon said that the government does not trust teachers and have turned them into deliverers of targets and turned schools into factories. The current drop out rate from universities and higher education is very high in Britain because schools do not prepare students for life in higher education institutions either practically or emotionally. The current exam system crushes individuality; schools knock out creativity and squeeze out individuality. Instead of this, schools should celebrate and promote children’s individual uniqueness. Education should find people’s strengths and not dwell upon their weaknesses.

Further information: www.mind.org.uk

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