Putting mental health in the spotlight

Twenty years ago, Steve Hennessey, a Bristol social worker and playwright, ran a drama workshop with psychiatric patients in a hospital he worked in. It was well received so he decided they would perform it for World Mental Health Day, and Stepping Out Theatre was born.

The group has grown over the years, working in the community and putting on shows annually, and now Stepping Out is the country’s leading mental health theatre group. The project has worked with hundreds of service users over the years, offering mentoring and educational opportunities and helping them to tackle the stigma and discrimination they face.

“The act of going onstage and performing helps people really develop their confidence and self-esteem. When we’re putting shows together, we’re using their voices, and it’s really empowering for them to have their voices onstage,” says Olivia Ware, the project’s Development Worker. She started volunteering a couple of years ago because she was interested in mental health, and theatre as a tool for recovery.

“I thought I’d come in and make cups of teas and before I knew it someone had pulled out of a big show and I was onstage!” It’s a tiny team; there are only two staff on the payroll, with Associate Artists and Directors coming in on a freelance basis to put on plays and run workshops.

“Because we’re a small organisation, we’re able to be very responsive to people’s needs. What we find about theatre is that it’s being involved in something that helps, you get a real sense of family; we have people that have been with us for 20 years and keep coming back to help. They’re part of this wider community that are working together for the same thing,” she says.

Emma Stadon joined up after her Mental Health worker took her to see a production. “For the first time in years, I felt I had people that were there to look after me,” she says. She credits the organisation for helping her through some very difficult times and says that her confidence has “grown and grown” since getting involved.

“Before I joined Stepping Out, I hated myself. I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror. I didn’t have any real friends and never used to leave the house. My home life was a mess from a young age and I started self-harming and taking overdoses to deal with it. When I was 16 years old, I was kicked out of home and school and ended up on a psychiatric ward.”

Mental health disorders aren’t uncommon – one in four will be affected by a mental or neurological disorder at some point in their lives and it’s one of the leading causes of ill-health worldwide – and yet having a mental health disorder is widely stigmatised. It’s not something that many sufferers feel comfortable talking about, which can distance them from the people who could be supporting them. Fear of discrimination can lead people to deny they have a mental health condition, resulting in them not seeking help. Mental health disorders have far-reaching effects on the sufferer’s life, and stigma – or perceived stigma – makes it worse. Having a mental health condition can be a very isolating thing.

Olivia says that Stepping Out provides a safe place where people get help managing their mental health, but also develop their confidence to progress in other areas of their lives.

“Our approach is that when you come into the room, there’s no judgement, no one’s asking about your diagnosis, the stigma gets left at the door,” she explains. “Some of our young people have said that it’s the first time that they’ve felt that their voices have been heard, and that helps enable them to get the confidence to go to other things,” she adds.

An external evaluation that Stepping Out commissioned found that 80% of participants felt that involvement had had a positive impact on their mental health to some degree, with 27% reporting the impact to be “huge”.

Emma is now a Trustee of Stepping Out and is involved in both the writing and performing of the productions. One of the plays she has written was performed at the Edinburgh festival and she starred in another Stepping Out production at the festival. “It was like a dream come true,” she says.

A lot has changed in mental health provision in the last two decades, but Olivia says that there’s as much of a need now as there ever has been to engage people in the community and give them an outlet. She says that the sense of community people get from being part of something reduces time in hospital, improves their wellbeing and helps them to avoid the cycle of hospital admission and readmission.

“Having a place in the community is so important, especially as hospital beds go down and down, people need something in the community.”

It’s a sentiment shared by many. “Being involved with Stepping Out has totally changed my life. I don’t think I would be here today if it wasn’t for them,” says Emma.

Want to find out more? Go and see a show! Forthcoming Bristol productions include The Vagina Monologues, on 24th – 28th October, and The Provoked Wife, on 14th – 25th November. For more information visit their website.