In November 2021, as part of our Invisible Illness campaign, we’re encouraging young people and their families with lived experience of chronic and physical conditions to stand up and speak out!

Some of our brave young ambassadors are being profiled on our website as part of our campaign to increase public and professional understanding of “invisible illness”.

With their parents, some will be talking to journalists. Others will be meeting their constituency MSPs (or MSPs who have a specific interest in mental health) to share insights about their experiences and the challenges they’ve faced along their journey.

 

What can you do to influence positive change?

If you want to show your support and add your voice to this important work, you can do so in several ways:

1. Act as a social media champion by liking our posts about our Invisible Illness campaign and sharing them with others to help spread awareness, using the hashtag #YoungVoicesofInvisibleIllness and tagging us @teapottrust on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. 

 

2. Ask your school, if you’re a pupil, if you can speak at an Assembly or a PSHE class about chronic illness in children and email us to ask for some support materials you can use.

 

3. Email your local Constituency MSP (in Scotland) or MP (in England). (Links direct you to postcode searches on the Holyrood and Westminster websites.) Please highlight the fact that 93% of the children and young people Teapot Trust supports (who live with chronic and physical conditions that impact their mental health) make positive progress toward their goals. In stark contrast, many of them previously tried publicly funded talking therapies that failed. So, it makes sense for policy makers to support highly effective Creative Therapies. Please ask your MSP or MP to ask questions about this in parliament.

 

4. If you’re interested in joining Teapot Trust staff and young ambassadors at meetings with mental health spokespeople from the different political parties, we’d love to hear from you so please email us.

 

Thank you for your support!