So today (19th November) is International Men’s Day, a day centred around celebrating and supporting men and those who work to improve their lives. The focus this year, as with most years, is to:
- To promote positive male role models
- To celebrate men’s positive contributions to society
- To focus on men’s health and wellbeing
- To highlight discrimination against men
- To improve gender relations and promote gender equality
- To create a safer, better world
Often, during International Men’s Day, facts and figures are shared to highlight the importance of focussing on mens health and wellbeing. The most staggering of which is often the statistics around male suicide (75% of suicides are male in the UK, suicide remains the single biggest killer of men aged 45 and under).
Whilst important to share these statistics, and to highlight the critical importance of suicide prevention, we at MWT are also cautious around the impact that such a heavy focus on suicide and it’s prevention can have.
In the mental health sector, there is a current crisis between supply and demand. We’ve never seen greater needs for services, or poorer funding to support them. This has led to a rapid deterioration away from services being preventative, towards being “fire fighting” services.
Whilst it’s hugely important to offer services to those in crisis, I’m often left wondering “what are we doing to stop the individuals getting to that crisis stage in the first place?”. This question is particularly important when considering the mental health and wellbeing of men.
The statistics around male mental health for the UK make for grim reading. 75% of suicides in the UK are male, yet only around 36% of referrals for Talking Therapy services are for men. Men are 3 times more likely as women to become dependent on alcohol, and three times more likely to report frequent drug use. Men are more likely to be compulsory detained for poor mental health.
In addition to the horrifying picture these statistics paint of the damaged lives of many men, and those who are around them, they also provide a stark warning: we are not doing enough to prevent mental ill health and to provide spaces for men to not only feel mentally well, but for their wellbeing to thrive. We are fire fighting.
Now, as mentioned above, I strongly believe in the immense importance of suicide prevention, and we need to be doing everything we can to tackle the pandemic of male suicide. However, I believe there are ways in which we can do this, where we not only ultimately prevent suicide, but we also create environments for men to address issues such as addiction, homelessness, crime, depression, anxiety, and foster mental resilience and stronger connections between men and their wellbeing.
To seem to focus so continuously on suicide as the leading cause for our existence as men’s health organisations, risks creating the idea that men can only access our support when they feel suicidal, and that our primary function is to work only at the extremes. When this is coupled with continuing high levels of stigma around men accessing support, with a lack of tailor made male specific services, we risk not only struggling to tackle the issues of male suicide, but also accidentally feeding into the “fire fighting” spiral we’re all currently experiencing.
What Can We Do Differently?
At MWT, we’re trying to shift the focus away from working at the extremes and “fire fighting” and onto creating spaces that help prevent men reaching that stage in the first place. Our story and history is not based around tragedy, but the prevention of further tragedy from happening.
We believe that if we are to ever properly address the issues facing men and their mental health, we first need to change the image above, to the image below.
To truly tackle the issues facing men’s mental health and wellbeing, we need well funded community support, co created with men at the core of service design. We need a rapid increase in the type and number of research being conducted on male mental health and wellbeing, which would feed into better policy and campaigns. And we need education and awareness programmes to help create a focus on mental wellbeing, the importance of developing resilience, and the reduction of stigma from early ages.
Being honest, the task to achieve the above is huge, and progress can often feel slow and frustrating. When in “fire fighting” mode, it can be hard to ever see another way of working, and even harder to then make the transition. The good news is however that it does work. When we focus on creating interventions and environments that focus more on wellbeing and less on crisis, the impacts can be huge. We see this every day in the work we do at MWT.
So, on this International Men’s Day 2023, we call on YOU, to be bold, to challenge the narrative that we can only ever be thriving or in crisis, and to join us in helping create a new focus on achieving positive mental health for all men, before they reach crisis not after. To do this will require “buy-in” from across not only the mental health sector, but private and public sectors, and the collective support of policy makers and institutions that can help build for lasting change. Whilst we work on achieving that, your support will help to help us begin to shift the focus.
Some tips on how YOU can improve your mental health & wellbeing:
1. Join a MWT online group – our spaces are free to access for all men aged 18+ across the UK. We provide safe, supportive social environments for men to come and feel part of the MWT community. Men can come and talk, listen, and feel supported by the MWT team.
More info: https://menwhotalk.org/free-online-groups
2. Follow any of the tips below to boost your wellbeing:
3. If you need further support, consider reaching out to any of the organisations listed on our “Further Support” page here: https://menwhotalk.org/further-support
*All statistics obtained from the Mental Health Foundation
