Heart On My Sleeve Movement provides information and support to help everyone in Australia achieve their best possible mental health, whatever their age and wherever they live.
Their purpose is to eradicate self-stigma from mental health by reducing reported feelings of self-judgement, and double the help-seeking rate to 60% by 2021. This equates to approximately 1.5 million conversations in Australia alone.
The movement started on May 30th 2017 after the founder, Mitch Wallis, shared his all-to-familiar yet commonly untold story of his battles with mental health, that quickly went viral on social media. He illustrated the immense conflict he felt between living the “perfect” outside life on social media, whilst suffering immensely beneath the surface. Within a week it had reached 1 million people, and featured on Channel 10’s The Project, Triple J, Sky News, and many more. People all around the world started drawing, even tattooing, hearts on their arm and shared their deeply personal and inspiring stories, to help others feel less alone and free themselves from their own demons.
We keep hearing that “it’s OK to talk”, so why is no one talking? There’s still strong judgement out there, we are all guiltyofit. The Heart on My Sleeve Movement aims to break down the stigma of mental health by giving it not one, but many voices. Instead of putting on a brave face, let’s actually be brave, and talk about our experiences so that everyone suffering in silence realises they’re not alone.
#HeartOnMySleeve
The money raised will go towards providing a range of digital services and programs designed to achieve:
SOCIAL STORYTELLING
• Movement – a social media campaign designed for self-expression by creating the world’s most inspiring collection of mental health stories on the internet;
• Pledge – an ambassador led campaign for people who aren’t feeling OK to put their hand up and commit to having a conversation.
EDUCATION
• eLearning – an online training program that provides people with the tools they need to speak up or share their story: safely, authentically & with impact;
• Live events – a series of professional led events that support and inspire the storytelling process.
MODERN INTERVENTION
• Online group support - an interactive peer-to-peer forum moderated by trained facilitators where attendees will practice telling their story;
• Online coping support – a mental health service which acts as a digital pigeon hole to leave thoughts, knowing it will be read, understood and validated by another human being.