My name is Angela Slater and I am the Community & Equalities Coordinator for the North East, Yorkshire & Humber Region for Time to Change. As you can imagine that is quite a large area! It covers from Berwick (the border of Scotland) right down past Sheffield including several major cities and rural areas. I live in County Durham, but I travel extensively throughout the region for this role.
For those who don’t know Time to Change, it is England’s biggest programme to challenge mental health stigma and discrimination and is led by National Mind and Rethink Mental Illness. It covers all of England and in each region there is a coordinator like myself. My job as coordinator is to support people like myself with lived experience of mental problems to actively challenge stigma and discrimination in their communities. I do this in several ways including.
Firstly I help organise both small and large events where people can speak to members of the public. In Sheffield Time to Change have been involved in two events at Sheffield Winter Gardens, and work at Sheffield University and Sheffield Hallam.
We were pleased to be part of Pride 2016, International Women’s Day events in 2015 and 2016, an older adults event at Verdon Recreation Centre in February 2016 and an event at the Pakistani Advice and Community Association on Page Hill Road. The most recent event was held on 17th May 2016 at Sheffield University for Mental Health Awareness Week. I would like to develop my work in Sheffield over the coming years as there is such a positive thriving network already established in this great city!
Another way I work to challenge stigma and discrimination is through campaigning groups. Most recently we have trialled setting up campaigning groups in Newcastle and Durham so people can come together to organise the events where they feel they are most needed. These groups were a pilot, and I’m pleased to say all of the feedback has been very positive. We hope to start developing new groups, as well as design a toolkit for groups wanting to do this for themselves. This is really important given the size of the regions Time to Change operates in, the breadth of our roles and the sustainability of creating change in our communities.
Finally, I deliver several different types of training in my role, including:
- Speaking out
- Social contact
- Running an event
- Effectively challenging stigma and discrimination
- Running an anti-stigma event
- Running a successful local campaign
You can also find e-learning training on the Time to Change website.
If you want to contact me about my work I am always happy to hear from people. My email address is [email protected] and my number is 07421763035.
