Welcome to the Elephant in the Room

Welcome to ‘The Elephant in the Room’.

Thanks you for visiting this space, where we tackle a really big beast that affects all our communities, in schools, in families and in society as a whole: mental health of young people in full-time education.

This issue has been swept under the carpet for too long. The statistics are both compelling and disturbing:

The Children’s Society says: ‘Ten per cent of children and young people (aged 5-16 years) have a clinically diagnosable mental problem yet 70% of children and adolescents who experience mental health problems have not had appropriate interventions at a sufficiently early age

Several ONS research studies on mental health for ages 5-16 (in 1999 and 2004) found that 6% of children and young people had behavioural and conduct issues and that 4% of the group experienced emotional problems, such as depression or anxiety.

As a parent of two children and as a social entrepreneur, I was moved to take action to address this pressing topic. Together with Professor Rosalind George at Goldsmiths University, I researchedthe problem of under-the-radar bullying in primary schools. We soon realised that the education system can inadvertently impose real obstacle to young people getting the help they need in all areas of their lives. This problem was truly ‘The Elephant in the Room’ – and I resolved to tackle the issue head on.

In 2006 I set up the Media Community Network charity, which uses film to address social problems. Inspired by the MCN film Cool to be Kind and the social-history photo-blog, book and arts initiative, Humans of New York, MCN is running an art project in May 2017 in Southwark called The Elephant in the Room, to shine a bright light on the dark practice of unreported bullying in schools, which causes many young people such mental anguish.

The Elephant in the Room uses film, art and music for the benefit of the wider community. For example, we will use film to address difficult issues raised by disadvantaged young people and to suggest workable resolution that can be used tomediate discussion between stakeholders (e.g. professionals, teachers, pupils, parents, local MPs and the young people involved).

The Elephant in the Room provides a platform in which young people between the age of 5-18 took part in a competition Southwark-wide (over 3000 young people submitted entries) to express their views on mental health and personal anguish.

MCN is running a crowdfunding campaign to support the exhibition and to produce a hard-copy teaching pack of stories and images to make available for sale to every school in the UK. Our financial target for raising funds for the exhibition and publishing project is £20,000

We encourage you to get involved: by making a financial contribution, by volunteering and/or by sharing news about The Elephant in the Room with your friends, families and on- and offline networks.

Thank you – with your help, we can begin to address The Elephant in the Room directly and start to make a positive difference to young people’s mental wellbeing.

Background notes

The charity intends to sell a hard copy of images and narrative to every school in the country and are supported by Brand Fuel an ad agency to support this campaign. So far the organisation has operated by extensive support from friends of charity and volunteers but with the material generated from exhibition they are now in a position to go from strength to strength. The target for this exhibition is £20k and this will pay a project manager to be employed permanently by the charity.

We use film, art and music for the benefit of the wider community. For example we use film to address a difficult issue represented by disadvantaged young people and suggest workable resolution and use the film as a form of mediation between professionals/teachers/pupils/parents/local MP and young people.

This project “The Elephant in the Room” is an Art Project that provides a platform in which young people between the age of 5-18 take part in a competition Southwark-wide (over 3000 young people took part) to express their views on mental health and personal anguish. This was inspired by a film we made called COOL TO BE KIND.

Eg.

1)Ten per cent of children and young people (aged 5-16 years) have a clinically diagnosable mental problem yet 70% of children and adolescents who experience mental health problems have not had appropriate interventions at a sufficiently early age.[1]

2)The ONS surveys (1999, 2004)[2] found the prevalence of mental health problems among children and young people (aged 5–16 years) to be:

-4% for emotional problems (depression or anxiety)

-6% for conduct problems

-2% for hyperkinetic problems

-1% for less common problems (including autism, tic disorders, eating disorders and selective mutism).

3)Abuse and neglect data is difficult to collect, and many abused and neglected children and young people are under the radar of data systems. It has been estimated that there are more children suffering from abuse and/or neglect than are known to social services. It has been estimated that for every protection plan, another 8 children have suffered maltreatment.[3]

The founder worked with Professor Rosalind George of Goldsmiths University to research most pressing issues in primary schools. We understood that under the radar bullying is largely overlooked and id passed from generation to generation as not considered serious enough at primary school age despite the anxiety caused to both children and parents even in schools operating a zero tolerance of bullying. We then came to see the term “The Elephant in the Room” a real obstacle to young people getting the help they need inn all areas of a young person’s life

I personally visited the Director of Education for Southwark who in turn introduced me to Head Teachers across Southwark. Of all the 12 schools who requested a consultation with us identified and agreed they had an ‘elephant in the room’ they wanted to address and were satisfied this could help reduce anxiety and increase confidence and well-being of their students. I introduced the film COOL TO BE KIND to every school and invited the school to create an Art project adapted to address the theme. The students would add narrative and the school would run a competition. The best three of those entries would be shown in an exhibition in London and Children in Action, Child Line and UNESCO would be part of the judging panel and support groups during the exhibition week. There were a number of changes according to the EITM (2006) Effect and Impact Tracking Matrix (Bamford, 2006 The Wow Factor).

The results have been overwhelming. Over 3000 students took part and each of the schools have identified unexpected improved levels of behaviour, engagement in project and enhanced confidence as a result.

We discovered that mental health is an issue for many schools and is difficult to address as unless a child is identified as having obvious mental health problems it is problematic to intervene. This project has allowed schools to identify preventative strategies when they recognised that problems are circulating amongst their students whether it be bullying, poor body image. As they were able to address anxiety directly it meant all children could benefit. This project exposed extremely talented students who showed great promise in art and literacy and sadly this opportunity to shine may not come along again with the opportunity to win competitions and exhibit work quite so easily.

Our projects have inspired professors, teachers and parents to tackle difficult issues. Our films are designed to bring all partner groups together towards resolution. We rely on factual information but adapt our projects so that they address universal humanitarian themes peacefully.

We have been supported by volunteers for the last 9 years. Our current chairman is professor of sociology and criminology following his university’s commission of one of our projects and historically our company secretaries have been QCs but we are currently recruiting due to changes in chambers.

Our extended business plan has been endorsed by CrowdPatch who have agreed to partner and represent us to TheRSA a community organisation to raise funds initially for hard back book and then develop to a more interactive book.

This project model has been used for every one of our film projects and now has a uniform shape that can suit any issue in any city. We believe this approach can be adopted by every school nationwide.

The founder has run 5 marathons and continues to raise revenue to maintain continuity for the charity and cover immediate running costs. We have attracted high end artists to this project who have agreed to auction items to support project.

Our films are used in universities and organisations and have been commended by Head teachers pan London because of their ability to inform and educate and address extremely difficult issues without causing offence or further perpetuating the condition of the victim.

Our board is diverse and represents a cross range of people in society including female and BME. We often consult experts to assist us with our research and we believe this provides current information at all times

Effect and Impact Tracking Impact (EITM) In recent international arts education research has shown (Bamford 2006 The Wow Factor) identified a number of factors that are consistently associated with high level impact, These can be combined to form an ‘effect and impact tracking matrix. We shall use this to organise our analysis of the data. There are nine categories Personal Impact, Social Impact, Cultural Impact, Educational Impact, Ethical impact, Economic Impact, Innovative Impact and Catalytic impact, ie changes in direction transformation and journeys. Negative loss and impact will also be looked at. Ie talent loss, personal loss and loss of creativity etc.

Our films are completely transparent and are designed to show each stake holder how we have represented their role. We have outstanding testimonials from every school we have worked with. So much so the founder was short listed by the Guardian Small Charities Award following a press conference at the House of Commons addressing children being left Home and Alone, called to speak on behalf of young people at the House of Lords where the Host of Ghana was special guest at the conference looking at Women’s Role towards Peaceful cohesion, also founder invited to speak at a SENCO conference following a film BUTT OUT promoting participation of special needs children in wider society. Also a film made with Wandsworth school children to look at wide needs across the borough including disability was shown at a Poverty Conference and used to train new staff joining Wandsworth Council from dinner lady to executive and was met with a round of applause. The founder was also awarded a special volunteers award for her contribution to the borough of Islington.

[1] Children’s Society (2008) The Good Childhood Inquiry: health research evidence. London: Children’s Society

[2] The Office of National Statistics Measuring National Well-being: Life in the UK, 2014

[3] Harker, L. et al (2013) How safe are our children? London: NSPCC