The mission of Honest Open Proud was to reduce the stigma of mental illness and improve the lives of those affected by mental illness by teaching people safe ways to talk about their experiences.
Quick fact: Public stigma of mental illness is most effectively diminished through contact with people who disclose their experiences of mental health recovery [i]
Honest Open Proud was designed to facilitate discussions on the impact of mental illness disclosure and whether it is appropriate to reduce the harm of internalised stigma associated with mental illness.
In 2016 a pilot of the HOP programme – devised and originally delivered by Illinois Institute of Technology Professor Patrick Corrigan – was delivered in Scotland by the Mental Health Foundation with funding from See Me. Following the pilot, several amendments have taken place to make it relevant to the Scottish context. Discussions are ongoing on future developments.
Eilidh Kettle - Honest Open Proud participant and facilitatorI was really excited and motivated to do the HOP training as a participant and was really grateful for the opportunity. As a facilitator I was quite apprehensive but once I got started it went well. I initially found it difficult to move people on when they were disclosing personal stories but after we revised the format of the training, this became much easier.
References:
[i] Coming Out Proud (2015) Should youth disclose their mental illness? Retrieved from http://comingoutproudprogram.org/images/ShouldYouthDiscloseMentalIllness_FINAL.pdf
