Newspaper
|

Learn How to Write About Mental Health and Suicide

ByMikeM Reading Time: 1 minute

Robert Vore shared this on his Facebook page, and with everything going on this past week, as well as a realization that all of us who deal with mental health issues on any kind of social media platform, I thought it would be appropriate to share. I plan on spending some time with this next week myself, in fact.

There is a free (thanks to grants) class offered by Poynter News University called Reporting on Mental Health Conditions and Suicide

From the description:

WHO SHOULD TAKE THIS COURSE:

Print, online and broadcast journalists (including reporters, producers, editors, copy editors, designers, photojournalists, bloggers and social media users) working on varied beats, journalism students, educators, veterans, mental health advocates and general public. This course will help everyone to gain a better understanding of mental health conditions, mental illness and covering suicide.

I’m pretty sure that includes most of us.

If taking the self-directed course is a bit too much for you, at least take a few minutes to look at this resource from AFSP for journalists.

It matters. How we talk about mental health and suicide can have a massive effect on people who are suffering. We owe it to them to be thoughtful about this.

Similar Posts

  • Sharing – A suicide safety plan saved my life. Here’s what it looks like, and why it worked

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 1 minute

    So, maybe before you or someone you love, gets into a crisis situation, it would be a good idea to work on this kind of plan with a professional, so that when you really need it, it’s there. Of course, as Kimberly points out, that means we should be able to talk about our struggles and our own risks when it comes to suicidal thoughts in the first place without the fear of being stigmatized.

  • New Research on Social Media and Teen Mental Health

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 3 minutes

    I think that second quote is really the key. We’ve seen studies that are reported as showing that kids who use social media get more depression and anxiety, but those studies do not address the question of whether there’s any proof that the causality is in that direction and not the other. In other words, do teens who use social media a lot develop depression, or do depressed teens use social media more. This study seems to indicate it’s the latter. As we continue with a lot of social distancing, and activities being canceled and in person gatherings are very limited, we know everyone will be relying more on social media to stay connected, so this is an important question, and I think what this study, and others, really shows us is that there are ways to use social media as a positive influence on our mental health, and a way to use it that will not be a positive influence on our mental health.

    In the physical world, we have these same choices. Do we interact with people who are toxic? Do we spend all of our time comparing ourselves to others? Do we isolate? Or do we find out tribe, our group of supportive friends/family that can interact socially in ways that help our mental health?

    We all make those same choices on social media, but the key difference here is that if we simply don’t choose, and make no effort to make conscious decisions about who we follow and interact with, social network algorithms will make the decision for us. Anyone already struggling with mental health is maybe more likely to not spent much time thinking about these things, and just let the app show them what it wants to show them, and that is not necessarily going to be good for our anxiety. Especially right now.

    So, if you find yourself feeling more anxious, angry, irritated, etc. every time you hop on Twitter or Instagram, maybe instead of just being that way, spend some time thinking about who you follow, and what they are bringing in to your life?

    For any of my social media using readers, can you share some of your favorite positive accounts that you interact with to HELP your mental health?

  • Rotherham Abuse Investigation

    ByCBG Reading Time: 1 minute

    A report was published last week in Rotheram, Yorkshire regarding the abuse of 1400 children by organised gangs http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-28939089  and the highlighting of the race of the offenders and victims was given a proper focus alongside the problems with the child protection systems in that town. During the first few days the media focus was…

  • |

    Video- Finding Courage to Talk About Child Sexual Abuse

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 1 minute

    When the subject of child sexual abuse comes up, we get uncomfortable. In this inspirational talk by Jill Tolles, we are challenged to find the courage to have this conversation and be a hero for the 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys who are effected by this silent epidemic. Jill Tolles has…

  • Sharing – Text messaging: The next gen of therapy in mental health

    ByMikeM Reading Time: 1 minute

    Interesting findings, and maybe something that shines more light around some things we’ve seen going back years about how much staying in contact with patients helps them stay connected. “In the first randomized controlled trial of its kind, a research team investigated the impact of a texting intervention as an add-on to a mental health…

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

To respond on your own website, enter the URL of your response which should contain a link to this post's permalink URL. Your response will then appear (possibly after moderation) on this page. Want to update or remove your response? Update or delete your post and re-enter your post's URL again. (Find out more about Webmentions.)