Mental Health Submission Process

Just flying out the door to Raglan! I live Mary O’Hagan’s piece and yes I have energy for a holistic piece integrating mindfulness and te ao Maori and public health approach and holistic view - but possibly not the time before 5 June as busy with other work. Let’s korero in Raglan. Also possibly open space in Raglan to work on the action station petitions???

Kia ora all. Kristina has been in touch with Eliot Pryor of Action Stations and in response to inquiring about whether a petition from us re: mindfulness in education would be acceptable and how long it would take for them to approve for release, this was his response:

Happy to chat about it and help with set up - just so you know we won't have much capacity to promote as we're also putting together a submission ourselves from the ActionStation community.
!We give our member review panel 2 or 3 days to consider a petition but can make it quicker if it's urgent, or if it's clearly in line with the community guidelines.

Kyle's one is a great example to follow though - he has a very simple 'ask', did a home-made video explainer, and got a bit of media attention with a press release.
Eliot Pryor
Community Campaign Coordinator
[email protected]

On behalf of Kristina and Grant, I voted 'no' to the three campaigns via Action Stations - not because we don't think the three areas of focus are not a good idea, but just because from the wider community perspective of who is going to be receiving all these different petitions, it is likely to be much the same people. We think there is too much risk that three campaigns about mindfulness to the MH inquiry will be overwhelming and confusing and potentially off-putting for people to sign all three.

I wonder:
Could we consider having MfC-led campaign along lines of "mindfulness is supported and promoted for all New Zealanders in education, workplaces and healthcare as an evidence-based approach to positive mental health" (that's just words thrown together off top of head, sure we could do better if we agree to this kind of approach). SO the "ask" is that the MH inquiry recommends the government include mindfulness in its mental health approach /vision for 2019 and beyond. Then the details of what/where/how for each setting would be figured out post-inquiry, if the concept of mindfulness gets over the line and makes it into the Panel's recommendations?

Thaks for this Tash, Grant and Kristina. Actually this is a really great point that hasn’t occurred to me so I tend to agree. So I would agree that an action station petition on advocating for mindfulness broadly would be a good option. However in my opinion it should call for mindfulness as part of both mental health prevention/promotion and treatment in all the areas that I mentioned in the fuller draft I wrote - basically a super condensed version of what I drafted? Would that work? (And link to a fuller document that is published in spin off maybe)....?

Yes this makes a lot of sense, thanks Tash, Grant and Kristina, and I'm happy with this approach. And yes I agree Brigid, I think we could call for it to be involved as prevention/promotion and treatment, find a way to say all the main points in a very concise and consolidated way. So just to confirm, you're still suggesting we do it through ActionStation?

I wonder whether we can still encourage our networks to make personal submissions as well, for example by telling them how to make an online submission when we share the link to the ActionStation campaign?

Yes a really well-worded visionary high-level submission calling for "mindfulness as part of both mental health prevention/promotion and treatment in all the areas" is exactly what we've been thinking and talking about this morning too. :)

Does make the task now, before we meet again tomorrow, to edit Brigid's draft? Is best use of everyone's time to edit as and when we have time? We're all pretty busy so I wonder if Brigid or Nick, do either of you want to do the next edit version and then send a loomio post / thread when it's ready for more eyes to review? I don't want to make it a complicated process of editing for anyone, but I know how hard it is to co-edit a doc with lots of people all at once.

I'm not sure if ActionStation will be right for this, but I'm open to whatever medium people think will work best.

Yes I think we should encourage our networks to make personal submissions as well and send them / post links for how to do this.

Thanks folks :)

Great, good to find alignment - this is what Loomio is for, being able to make decisions as a group asynchronously (i.e. not having to all be in one place at one time), and to allow us to change our minds as we go.

Yes I think that is the task for now :slight_smile: . I will have a go at editing Brigid's draft this afternoon, am pretty tired after the hui but will see what I can do, as I agree it would be good to have something closer to ready to review in the call tomorrow. From talking with Brigid she had a pretty full schedule this week.

Yes unfortunately I have almost no capacity this week due to other commitments. I’d love to put my hand up to do the editing but can’t promise that so if Nick is ok to make a start that would be wonderful. I think I go most of what I thought was relevant (at least for mindfulness) into last week’s draft. The only thing I thought of to add in afterwards was some really amazing stuff by psychiatrist Peter Kinderman that I think helps make the link between mindfulness and the social and biological determinants of mental wellbeing ie. that mindfulness can mediate the effects of these determinants. If I get a chance I’ll have a look and try to add in.

Will MEG/TKI still plan to write a separate fuller submission advocating for PBS/Atawhai?

Yes we are working on it and we are hoping to be able to say that it's supported by Mindfulness for Change and you have you all share it among your networks - that would be awesome! WE'll share it once it's ready (getting close).

Look forward to seeing you all at 11.30 today.