Dear Colleagues,
World Mental Health Day gives us an important opportunity to meaningfully engage with People with Lived Experience (PWLE) of mental health conditions and to recognise their knowledge as a vital form of expertise. This year’s campaign is a call for their voices to shape the policies, services and decisions that affect their lives.
As we mark this day, we recognise that every person has a story, that every person deserves to be heard, and that every person deserves to be treated with dignity, compassion and respect.
This year’s theme, “Lived experiences heard: real voices, real change”, reminds us that listening alone is not enough. People who have experienced mental health difficulties must have a meaningful voice in the decisions that affect their care and their lives.
Lived experience is what a person has been through themselves, it gives them knowledge and understanding that cannot be gained by only hearing or learning about it.
Too often, PWLE are asked to share their stories but are then excluded from decision-making. Meaningful engagement must go beyond simply being heard.
It means creating opportunities for people to influence decisions, to co-design services, to strengthen peer-led approaches, to challenge stigma and to improve accountability. When PWLE are genuinely involved, mental health systems become more person-centred, more rights-based, and more responsive to people’s needs.
On this World Mental Health Day, let us move from listening to action and build mental health systems with people, not just for them.
Thank you.
Peter Hughes
General Secretary
