Rethink Mental Illness

Rethink Mental Illness

Founded	1972 (1972)
Type	Charity
Registration no.	271028
Focus	Mental illness
Location	89 Albert Embankment, London SE1 7TP
Area served	UK
Key people	CEO Mark Winstanley
Revenue	£50.9m (2013)[1]
Slogan	Challenging attitudes, changing lives
Mission	to help
Website	www.rethink.org
Formerly called	National Schizophrenia Fellowship; Rethink

Rethink Mental Illness is a mental health charity in England. Its mission statement is "Working together to help everyone affected by severe mental illness recover a better quality of life." The organisation was founded in 1972 by relatives of people diagnosed with schizophrenia, following an article by a journalist whose son had been diagnosed. The operating name of 'Rethink' was adopted in 2002 but the charity remains registered as the National Schizophrenia Fellowship, although it no longer focuses only on schizophrenia. The operating name was expanded in 2011 to be more self-explanatory.^[2]

Rethink now has over 8,300 members, who receive a regular magazine called Your Voice. The charity states that it helps 48,000 people every year, and is for carers as well as those with a mental illness. It provides services (mainly community support, including supported housing projects), support groups, and information through a helpline and publications. The Rethink website receives almost 300,000 visitors every year. Rethink carries out some survey research which informs both their own and national mental health policy, and it actively campaigns against stigma and for change through greater awareness and understanding. It is a member organisation of EUFAMI, the European Federation of Families of People with Mental Illness.

The current chief executive is the Mark Winstanley,^[3] replacing Paul Jenkins, in March 2014.^[4][5]

Campaigns

Rethink Mental Illness was instrumental in promoting the new early psychosis paradigm in 1995 when they linked with an early psychosis network in the West Midlands, called IRIS (Initiative to reduce impact of schizophrenia).^[6][7] This then led to the Early Psychosis Declaration by the World Health Organisation^[8] and the subsequent formation of early psychosis services as part of mainstream health policy.^[9][10]

Amongst its recent campaigns Rethink has urged the government to look at the mental health risks of cannabis, rather than "fiddle with its legal status". Cannabis was downgraded from a Class B to a Class C drug in 2004, making most cases of possession non-arrestable. However, Rethink wants government support for new research into the relationship between severe mental illness and cannabis.^[11] They have publicly stated, in response to George Michael's advocacy of the drug, that cannabis is the drug "most likely to cause mental illness".

Rethink was both criticised and congratulated for commissioning a statue of Sir Winston Churchill in a straitjacket, which was unveiled in The Forum building in Norwich on 11 March 2006. This was part of Rethink's first anti-stigma regional campaign. The statue was intended to show how people in today's society are stigmatised by mental illness, based on claims that Churchill suffered from depression and perhaps bipolar disorder.^[12] However, the statue was condemned by Churchill's family, and described by Sir Patrick Cormack as an insult both to the former prime minister and to people with mental health problems. Although straitjackets have not been used in UK psychiatric hospitals for decades, a sufferer from bipolar disorder identified with "the straitjacket of mental illness" and commended the image. Nevertheless, in response to the complaints, the statue was removed.^[13]

In 2009 Rethink launched Time to Change, a campaign to reduce mental health discrimination in England, in collaboration with MIND.^[14]

Funding

Rethink Mental Illness sets out annually its financial situation in its Trustees' Annual Report. They report as follows:

Rethink Mental Illness has an annual income of just under £48.5 million, according to its Annual Report and Financial Statements for the year ended March 2014.^[17] The vast majority of the funding is from the UK government ("statutory" sources including local governmental health and social care bodies).

Some of Rethink's research that it uses to guide its campaigns, services and service users has been funded in partnership with pharmaceutical companies.^[18][19] The 2011 annual report and financial statements mention Astra Zeneca and Lundbeck as supporters or partners, and funding from other pharmaceutical companies in previous years is acknowledged on the charity's website. The charity reported total funding of £235,000 from six pharmaceutical companies and further gifts in kind from three in 2006–2007,^[20] and £110,000 in 2008–2009.^[21] Rethink informed a government committee in 2004 that it works in partnership with pharmaceutical companies and industry bodies and that, in addition to donations, it has for many years accepted pharmaceutical sponsorship of its publications, events and local projects. The then chief executive stated that all sources of funding come with bias and strings attached, that pharmaceutical funding is only a small minority of overall income, and that government funding is the top source of undue and improper influence on organisations.^[22] Rethink publishes its policy on sponsorship which states that pharmaceutical sponsorship should not exceed 1% of turnover; in the accounts cited above, it was well below this level.^[21]

See also

• Centre for Mental Health
• Improving Access to Psychological Therapies
• Mental Health Foundation
• Mental Health Providers' Forum
• Mind
• Nacro
• National Mental Health Development Unit
• Richmond Fellowship
• Revolving Doors Agency
• SANE
• Stand to Reason (charity)
• Together
• Turning Point

References

External links

• Official site
• Time to Change, programme to end mental health discrimination