Around 16 million peple in the UK experience a mental illness at some point each year, with suicide being listed as the leading cause of death amongst young people.
Self-harm is one of the most common reasons that children and young people contact Childline, and the NSPCC service delivered 18,471 counselling sessions about self-harm in 2015/16 - equivalent to 50 a day. Over the last few years, Channel 4 has addressed the topic of mental health through programmed such as Stranger on the Bride, and more recently Hollyoask, which ran stories on both self-harm and male suicide, winning the Virgin Money Giving Mind Media Awards 2017; Sopa or Continual Series.
As former Children's Minster and Shadow Minister for Mental Health, this is an issue I take a great interest in, so I joined Lucian Berger MP, Sue Baker, Director of Time to Change, and Jonny Benjamin and Neil Laybourn (Stranger on the bridge) and the cast and producers of Hollyoaks and Channel 4 to discuss why the broadcast media is such a powerful tool in breaking down stigma around mental health. The discussion addressed what progress has been made in the area to date and what more needs to be done.