The British summer is here and it’s time for dancing in the sunshine (wind/rain/delete-as-appropriate). And that means it’s time for the Mindapples Gardeners to don their dancing boots and take to the fields to find out what UK festival-goers do to look after their minds.
This weekend we kicked off our summer festivals campaign at Lovebox 2012 in Victoria Park in London. We had lots of fun in the sun so a big thanks to the Ministry of Welfare for inviting us along. Check out the lovely photos from the weekend on our Facebook page here.
We’ve been running pop-ups at festivals since 2010 because we think it’s important to reach out beyond healthcare and the social sector and encourage everyone to take care of their minds, and to feel good about that. Last year we visited six UK festivals and harvested a whopping 7899 new applecards, and we believe that by asking people to think a little about how to take care of their minds when they’re feeling good in the sunshine, we can help them reflect on how to take better care of themselves in the rest of their lives.
We’ll be sharing the best of our summer harvest via Twitter and Facebook, so follow us there and find out what weird and wonderful things our festival-goers are doing to look after their minds. See if you can spot yours!
Learn how to improve your mental performance and get the best from yourself and others.
On 26th April 2012, Nathalie Nahai and Andy Gibson from Mindapples will be offering an intensive hands-on training event on how our minds work, featuring basic tools to help us understand our minds, become more resilient, and manage ourselves and others better.
This 1-hour session introduces:
the science of mental wellbeing and resilience
managing your mood
mirror neurons
the physiology of influence
Over 90% of recent participants rated this training as “good” or “excellent” and said they will do something different as a direct result of the event.
“I certainly found the approach novel and informative which is praise indeed having been to so many “stress management sessions”.” Dr David Matthews, MB, BS, DRCOG, DOccMed, AFOM, FRCGP, Occupational Physician
This event will be held in deluxe training facilities at the Exchange in London Bridge, at the foot of the Shard, and will be followed by networking drinks and a chance to discuss the content and Mindapples’ new training programme Your Mind: A User’s Guide with our staff.
The next session is 5pm-7pm on Thursday 26th April 2012.
The first 10 members of our online community get 10% off the ticket price!
I’m hopeless at keeping secrets, particularly when I have good news to share. So it’s with great pleasure that I can finally announce an investment of £120,000 in Mindapples from Maudsley Charity.
Maudsley Charity’s funds are made up of donations that have been made to South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and its predecessor organisations, and is managed by the Trust’s Board members. The aim of the endowment is to be a key agent in enhancing mental health provision and changing how mental health is viewed – in the local community and on a wider scale.
The Maudsley Trustees have made this grant and loan investment in us in recognition of the effectiveness of our campaign in spreading positive messages about mental health, and also their belief that our services to workplaces and healthcare will generate strong commercial returns if we invest in their development now. This backing from the leading specialists in the field is a ringing endorsement for our positive, grassroots approach. The investment will enable us to develop even better services for employers and healthcare providers, and to raise awareness of this important issue all around the UK.
Kumar Jacob, Chair of Maudsley Charity, said of the investment:
“In these challenging times, it is more vital than ever that people take good care of their mental health. Mindapples’ creative and upbeat campaigning style and emphasis on simple, positive actions has proved very successful in engaging people in this important topic, and we’re delighted to be able to support this innovative campaign to develop and grow.”
Mindapples is the first major national campaign to focus on mental health, not illness, and this backing from the leading specialists in the field is a ringing endorsement for our positive, grassroots approach.
The investment will enable us to scale up our services for employers and healthcare providers, supporting employees and patients to take better care of their minds, and to fund our campaign to raise awareness of this important issue all around the UK. We will continue to work with large businesses to promote employee health and wellbeing, and with Kings Health Partners, NHS Lambeth and the Mental Health Promotion Team at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust to incorporate our “5-a-day for your mind” approach into public health and primary care services in London.
I’ve attached a full press release about this announcement. Please do forward it on to anyone you think might be interested in featuring us in their blogs, newletters or print media.
We want to reach people who never normally think about the health of their minds – especially young people. Mental health is a serious issue, but our approach is fun and sociable, bringing people together to talk about what they love doing. We all have mental health, and we can all do simple things to look after ourselves. Keeping our minds healthy can be something we all enjoy.
I’m extremely proud that such a knowledgeable and forward-thinking Trust as Maudsley Charity has recognised the value of our unique approach. On behalf of everyone involved in Mindapples, thank you to the Maudsley and all our other supporters over the years, including you. We’re really looking forward to taking our campaign to the next level in 2012.
Have you checked out our lovely Advent Calendar yet? Throughout December we’re sending you a Christmassy mindapple a day. Follow us on Twitter and Like us on Facebook to get the updates, and you can subscribe on our new Mindapple-a-day feed too.
The spring season has been a busy one for Mindapples, with events such as the launch of Action for Happiness and new exciting projects and collaborations coming together. Recently Mindapples has been attracting quite a bit of attention from the media, so here is a little round-up for you in case you missed anything and would like to have a read about what Mindapples have been up to.
On 16 May 2011, The Telegraph published a feature story “Mindapples ‘five-a-day-for-the-mind’ cheerfulness plan to be trialled by NHS” by Julie Cross. The article covers the importance of raising awareness and promoting general well-being through the 5-a-day method. Andy was particularly pleased to be refered to as “an ordinary member of the public” (apparently he has always wanted to be “ordinary”) and explains what the notion of Mindapples aims to achieve and how the idea came about. In the article Dr. Andrew McCulloch, Chief Executive of the Mental Health Foundation, noted that Mindapples is “an accessible approach to improving mental well-being”. It also talks about the upcoming NHS trial where Mindapples will be spread around waiting rooms in GP surgeries in Lambeth.* The article is definitely a worth-while read and it’s great to see press coverage which really focuses on what Mindapples aims to achieve: to start a healthy conversation about mental wellbeing and to empower invididuals to consider and carry out actions independently that they feel are good for their mind.
Mindapples also recieved media coverage in relation to the Action for Happiness launch event, a movement for postive social change to build a happier society. In an article in the Guardian “This pursuit of happiness makes me queasy”, the author Madeleine Bunting writes about Mindapples as having tools for preventative mental health and says that it really is a concept that could catch on, such as gyms did in the 80′s. Mindapples was featured in a video for BBC News, with a quick interview with Andy about his 5-a-day, and footage of the Mindapples tree at the Action for Happiness event. Andy was also interviewed on the Jeremy Vine BBC 2 radio show (7:20 min) about Action for Happiness and Mindapples. This lead to a discussion on the show with Claire Fox who claimed that self-obsessed materialism is a better motivational tool than personal happiness, so it’s worth a listen.
So there you are, the latest Mindapples media coverage. It really is exciting to see Mindapples and positive mental health being discussed and the word spread around, hopefully making more people aware that their mind is something they should take care of. As for the team, Mindapples are busy working away, planning new exciting projects, and getting ready for another summer of festivals bringing the brand new Mindapples trees to events near you!
Oh and lastly, perhaps a quick introduction, I’m Ruta the new Mindapples research intern *waves*.
Have a great summer!
Posted by Ruta
*Addendum: All our GP surgeries pilot work is subject to approval by research ethics and NHS research governance and will not proceed until all ethical considerations have been satisfied. - Andy Gibson, Oct 2011
March has been a very busy month for Mindapples, what with moving into our new offices at Somerset House, getting production underway with our Lambeth GP surgeries project, and engaging in the various discussions in Government around the Public Health White Paper and other key key policy announcements.
£500 for Mindapples itself, recognising our potential for improving patient healthcare outcomes; and
£2000 for our idea to collect the suggestions from the Mindapples community and other public ‘happiness’ movements and create a national index of the things we as a nation want and need to be mentally healthy, to inform policymakers, local government and commissioners.
The money will be put towards some vital infrastructure work for us, including helping to improve our website and also help us get our office set up. More important than the money though is that this represents our first official endorsement from Central Government for the work we’ve been doing at Mindapples. We’ll be continuing the conversation with both the Cabinet Office and the NHS to work with them to promote public mental health in the UK and hopefully secure some further investment to help us scale up our efforts.
Huge thanks to Sandie Bakowski and all the staff at the Innovation Hub’s DotGovLabs team. Mindapples and I really appreciate all that you’re doing to promote innovation in public services and get our ideas the voice they need to make real change. And thanks to you all, as always, for supporting Mindapples and helping us grow.
As someone who has taken an interest in the growth and development of Mindapples over 2010, I thought you might appreciate a little update on where we’ve got to and where we’re headed!
NHS pilot
As I announced earlier this week, we now have a confirmed grant from Guys and St Thomas’s Charity to pilot Mindapples with GP surgeries across Lambeth. We will be installing Mindapples materials in four Lambeth GP practices to begin with, and asking the staff and patients of each practice to share their Mindapples via the installations. Mindapples will then be analysing the responses and helping the practices design simple ways to support the wellbeing of their staff and patients, and we’ll also then do follow-up marketing and digital engagement services.The project will be evaluated by the Institute of Psychiatry and Kings College London to give us a core evidence base to show to other funders and NHS organisations, particularly with a view to selling services to the new GP consortia when they’re established in 2011. We’re looking to recruit some volunteers and interns to help with this project, so if you think you have something to bring please e-mail iseehealthypeople@mindapples.org
Engagement events
In the past six months, the Mindapples Tree has travelled to the Future Gallery in London, the Secret Garden Party, Camp Bestival, the Big Chill, the Playgroup Festival, Brixton Market, Millwall FC and the NHS Confederation Mental Wellbeing Conference. Over the summer we have harvested over 1255 mindapples, including 444 from the Secret Garden Party postboxes and tree combo alone. I’m particularly pleased with our Brixton Market event, in which we popped up one Saturday and successfully engaged 170 total strangers in sharing their mindapples in just three hours. There are also lots and lots of photos online now on our new Flickr page. Thanks to everyone who volunteered to help out, particularly Hege for the Big Treat, Jenny and Lucy for the festivals campaign, and Esther for all the recent conferences and pop-ups.
Big thanks also to Lucy for doing the evaluation on all this for us, and if you’d like a copy of the evaluation report please e-mail ilovestatsmmmmlovely@mindapples.org.
Thanks to many people and to Esther, Mandeep, Amanda, Christine and Tessy in particular, we have also submitted a large bid to the Maudsley Charity for core funding and product development, and will be applying for various other charitable grants in early 2011 using the evidence base we’ve collected over the summer. Fundraising has been slow though, mainly because of our lack of core resources, so we’re looking for help in this area urgently. There’s a lot we don’t know in this area and I’m sure we could be doing more. Any help you can offer with our next round of funding bids would be amazing. Please e-mail iknowhowtogetmoney@mindapples.org
Sales
We have been developing a range of products to sell to commercial and healthcare clients for a while now, and we are finally making some headway. Focussing at this stage on engagement services, particularly workshops, digital tools and promotional materials, we are getting a lot of enquiries and now some sales for workshops and installations to commercial and charitable clients. We are hoping to grow this workshop business in 2011 and then offer our clients higher value services that deliver deeper wellbeing outcomes, including digital subscription services and offering Big Treat events for staff in large workplaces. Of course there’s a lot more to do here, but we’re definitely making good progress, and we are confident now that there is a market for what we do. For more information on our products and services, please e-mail buyingthingsmakesmehappy@mindapples.org.
Talks and lobbying
We’ve been something of a hit at conferences and with the wider policy community recently. Huge thanks to Marjorie for her great efforts promoting us at the Tory and LibDem Conferences, and I’ve also spoken at the Guardian Social Care Conference, the NHS Confederation Mental Wellbeing Conference, the SLaM NHS Wellbeing Conference, the Robertson Cooper Business Wellbeing Network Conference and also various social innovation events and meetups. At the Business Wellbeing Conference, we were on the same bill as Lord Richard Layard, and the Mindapples session was voted the most popular of the day by the 100+ delegates, a staggering 4.76 out of 5! Thanks to Tony, Lucy, Gregor, Nicola, Ravi and others, we’re also becoming increasingly known within the NHS and the policy community, and have been consulted on the various White Papers emerging from the new Government. Tessy and I are now hoping to build on this by writing a policy pamphlet about the innovative Mindapples engagement methodology. If anyone would like to help us by doing some research into mental health promotion policy for this pamphlet, drop us a line at mylittlepolicywonk@mindapples.org.
Website
Back in the Summer, we received a Better Net Award from UnLtd and Nominet Trust to redevelop our website, and huge thanks to Hege, Rose, Victoria and Analia for all their help with that. The new site was built by Unboxed Consulting, Sangeet and Tom, and thanks to Hege and Gavin for their help too back in July. It’s basic, but it’s a great starting point and we’re consistently getting a few signups a day without any promotion. We’ll promote it more heavily once we’ve got the next version up, which will include Networks functionality to allow organisations to have their own mini-mindapples survey and community, and also various follow-up engagement tools. If anyone would like to help me test the next version of the website, please e-mail me at makemeataster@mindapples.org.
Organisation
We founded Mindapples as a non-profit Company Limited by Guarantee in May 2010, with myself, Tessy and Hege as the initial guarantors. Thanks to Nicola and Esther we are now properly set up with good accounting processes, VAT registration and all those other grown up things. We have also been slowly professionalising the organisation, with things like IP licensing and confidentiality agreements and the beginnings of contracts for staff and volunteers. I think we are in good shape for the coming year of expansion, although obviously there’s always more to do in this area. I’ll make sure we share as many of our models as we can to help other start-ups. Thanks very much to Louise for her support and constant favour-pulling to get us the advice we’ve needed in this area. We definitely need more help with our communications next year, so if you can help us send updates to the Gardeners and our wider community, please contact meandmybigmouth@mindapples.org.
As you can see, it’s been a very busy year and many people have contributed to our successes in 2010. I’d particularly like to thank Hege, who worked tirelessly on the Big Treat earlier in the year and has now gone on to found her own project, All We Need; Esther, who has taken on all our operational management in recent months and is doing amazing work turning us into a Proper Organisation, Amanda, Jenny and Lucy for all their great work at our events and writing such great reports, and particularly to Tessy for working a lot harder than people realise behind the scenes, keeping me (mostly) sane and quietly pushing things in the right direction at all times. I remain really proud and privileged to have so many talented and enthusiastic people helping me to make Mindapples a success, including all of you out there in our extended online family. THANK YOU ALL for your hard work, support, advice, and most of all for believing in this project. 2011 is going to be a very good year.
A very happy Christmas to you all.
Andy x
As someone who has taken an interest in the growth and development of Mindapples over 2010, I thought you might appreciate a little update on where we’ve got to and where we’re headed.
I am delighted to announce that we now have a confirmed grant from Guys and St Thomas’s Charitable Trust to pilot Mindapples with GP surgeries across Lambeth. Huge thanks to Esther, Tessy and our lovely partners Tony Coggins at SLaM NHS Trust and Lucy Smith at NHS Lambeth for getting this exciting project underway.
In early 2011, we will be installing Mindapples materials in four Lambeth GP practices to begin with, and asking the staff and patients of each practice to share their Mindapples via the installations. Mindapples will then be analysing the responses and helping the practices design simple ways to support the wellbeing of their staff and patients, and we’ll also then do follow-up marketing and digital engagement services. The project will be evaluated by the Institute of Psychiatry and Kings College London to give us a core evidence base to show to other funders and NHS organisations, particularly GPs and hospitals around the country.*
I look forward to keeping you posted about this and other exciting new projects Mindapples will be working on in 2011. We’re looking for volunteers and interns to help out with this study in early 2011, so if you think you have something to bring to the party please e-mail iseehealthypeople@mindapples.org.
Posted by Andy
*Addendum: All our GP surgeries pilot work is subject to approval by research ethics and NHS research governance and will not proceed until all ethical considerations have been satisfied. - Andy Gibson, Oct 2011
To celebrate, Mindapples have been on tour around London, beginning in Brixton on Thursday and Saturday, and culminating in installing the Mindapples Tree at CityCamp London in the Hub King Cross today. It’s been an amazing few days, stepping far out of our comfort zone to get as broad a rane of people as we could in considering the health of their minds. Huge thanks to Lucy Smith at NHS Lambeth for hiring us, to Spacemakers and Transition Town Brixton for hosting us yesterday, and to Futuregov and the gang at CityCamp for welcoming us today.
For two years now, Mindapples hasn’t done anything for World Mental Health Day. Yes, it’s partly because we’re disorganised, but it’s also because, frankly, we don’t feel a great affinity with it. Let’s face it, today is actually World Mental Illness Day. It’s really important for us to honour and support people who suffer from mental distress and those who care for them – but is it really Mental Health Day? If it was, surely we should be promoting the positive things that we all want to have – a healthy mind, a positive experience of life – and giving people a really strong image of a mentally healthy lifestyle they can be a part of? 40% of our mental wellbeing is down to our “outlook and activities” (according to Lykken, D, 1999), so why are we never told that? Why aren’t we talking about that today? Where do we fit, as individuals and as a society, in this world of “mental health”?
So on 10/10/10, Mindapples is asking everyone to join us in making this World Mental Health Day about health, not illness. Please comment here and share your stories about what you’ve done and how you’ve felt when your mind is really feeling good, and share your mindapples to get as many people as possible talking about mental health as a good thing, that we can all be a part of.
We all have minds, and we all have mental health; so let’s celebrate how well we’re all doing, and remind ourselves how similar we all are for once.
This summer, we’re taking Mindapples to the masses.
First, we launched our campaign with our health showcase pop-up health farm, The Big Treat, with Courvoisier, Crussh, SavvyCook and many other great brands. Now, we’re taking the Mindapples Tree on tour to festivals all round Britain, spreading the word about looking after our minds to people who are out to party and enjoy the summer sunshine.
Two weeks ago we were at the Secret Garden Party near Huntingdon, where the good folks at Limina hosted the tree in their lovely tent and we got hundreds of amazing responses from people, as well as quite a few people sleeping under the shady branches.
I’ve posted some photos here, and there are loads more on our new Flickr page too.
Last weekend, Lucy and Marilena took the tree to Camp Bestival, and had a great response there too, particularly from kids. We’re awaiting their report now but initial feedback suggests we collected even more responses there than at SGP, which is brilliant stuff.
Want to see us in action? This weekend we’ll be at The Big Chill in Herefordshire,and then the ultra-exclusive Playgroup Festival on 13-15 August. Come and find us under the Mindapples Tree!
