Who are we lying to? The covid fightback continues

 Our industry's ecosystem is broken - from the ground up it's all gone pear-shaped. There was so much hope (ironically) back in 2020 when everything closed that when we returned, we would fix everything that was wrong. Of course, that was extremely naive and ambitiously optimistic, but it did feel like our best chance to reassemble and re-evaluate how our industry had limped through the last few years prior to the pandemic.

Fast forward two years and so little has changed. There are more angry voices calling out inequality in the industry, but no finance to address how we open up our industry to all. So for sure, there are more opportunities, but very often we don't have the talent coming through to give the opportunities too. We don't have the talent because the funding around training is worse than ever, and the outreach programmes aren't effective enough to create a real change in the landscape.

We spoke about how 'the show must go on' probably wasn't the best practice that we all thought that it was, then the theatres creaked back open and (some) producers desperate to keep the industry alive exploited the motto more than ever. As swings and understudies got lauded, dance captains and associates were buckling under the pressure of yet another cut show and more rehearsals than we'd ever had before (straight off the back of no work for 2 years). The landscape had changed and the unthinkable was now a regular occurrence - shows would cancel a performance, often leaving audiences out of pocket and slightly scared to rebook. . . yet.

The landscape is still so sparse to what we were used to pre-pandemic, and in spite of so many people leaving the industry during the dark times, colleges with their ever-growing populations kept churning out thousands of graduates eager to work and determined to stay the distance, whilst industry stalwarts that usually managed to stay afloat were suddenly left on the sidelines with them waiting for things to really take off again.

Throw in the real impact of Brexit and the lack of opportunities for performers to now work abroad - the cruise ship industry is still buckling under covid, and for the few jobs that there are available, an EU passport is now as valuable as a good turn out or a top-class voice reel.

In the UK we've finally named that the touring model is deeply flawed from digs to pay - but what's the answer? People are tired of things being hard.

2 years of hardship and people's resilience is low. Those 2 years stole more than our work, for many the pandemic stole their identity. As a vocational industry so many of us identify as our jobs - this is a personal choice not endorsed by the industry, but a reality of a lifetime of dreams getting fulfilled.  So many of us made the career choice at a stupidly young age that it somehow became a constant in our lives - until that fateful day in 2020 when our industry closed down.

The successful amongst us saw their life savings dwindling away to nothing. In technical theatre literally hundreds of 'us' realised that their skills were transferable, and more than that, were transferable in industries that naturally treated their staff better. Shorter working hours, larger paycheques, financial security. The talent drain amongst our technical theatre community is staggering.

We returned saying that we would look after each more carefully, but that hasn't happened, in fact, quite the opposite, we've returned more self-centred than ever, after all . . . all of 'this' could simply be snatched from us again. We have to look out for No 1 now.

As the person that started #time4change, the very first campaign for a better understanding of mental health and mental illness in the industry way back in 2016 the regression is clear. I mean the narrative and social media click baits are more on-message than ever. If you only studied theatre twitter you'd think that we'd had a revolution of understanding - but of course, the reality is different. People STILL can't differentiate between mental health and mental illness, now illness gets celebrated as opposed to people being encouraged to go and seek out help. A couple of schemes and an increase in mental health first aiders was not the revolution that I'd hoped for 6 years ago.

Take mental illness out of the picture and just focus on mental health and we've come back worse than when we left it. Now your resilience is tested because you should be grateful to be in a job - the cruise industry is currently a great example of this dangerous narrative. People on shows are working longer hours than ever (the joy of the covid cut show), for less money than ever. Less money adds to the everyday stress which was already hugely present for most freelancers during their non-funded pandemic. Companies are struggling so those invoices are being paid later than ever. The stress on the individual is huge (it should be noted on both sides of the table - as producing stuff during this time is a heart attack waiting to take hold).

All of the above will eventually sort itself out, but it would be a damn sight more healthy if the struggle was named more openly if people were supported during their wobbles and if companies focused on individuals as much as their accounting software.

There's still time for the revolution that our industry desperately needs, but first, we all have to breathe, take stock and heal. We have to learn to be kind to each other as we all take the next steps in the resuscitation of an industry that really could be world-class again.

Mental Health and resilience

 I've read several conflicting articles over the past couple of weeks about how much better our industry is coping with mental health since the pandemic. Some claim that we're really getting on top of it all now with lots of additional help being put in place, others claim that we're still not doing enough, and we're about to witness a massive era of crash and burn.

Now as the person that started campaigning for better education around mental health in drama training some 7 years ago now, and as someone that was instrumental in launching the #time4change mental health charter some 5 years ago I'm finding the conversations really difficult - and here's why. We're focused on the symptoms, not the cause. We're working off the assumption that the industry is making people ill, whereas it seems to me that with 1 in 3 in the arts susceptible to mental illness, shouldn't we be moving a few steps backwards and try to deal with the fact that people who might already be experiencing symptoms of mental illnesses are entering our industry. For sure our industry makes it worse, but for lots of reasons, our industry attracts a certain demographic.

What am I basing this brazen statement on - 12 years of running a drama college with a clinician heading up my pastoral care team. I am truly gobsmacked at how many of my students over the years were attempting to deal with obvious mental illness symptoms and yet nobody had diagnosed them. Instead, there are countless stories of GPs, teachers, and even parents normalising their symptoms, putting it down to teenage angst etc when all the time they just needed treatment. I've witnessed first-hand the life-changing effect of treatments like CBT, talking therapy and sometimes where indicated, a chemical intervention. 

The trouble with the new culture of declaring your mental health is that we're failing to build resilience and we're failing to address the real issue. We all have crap days, and we all have days where we have to push through 'a mood' but for some, this is indicative of an illness. The answer isn't necessarily to have a day off though. For example, if our students hit a crisis at college we support them to come in as much a possible. Physical exercise is one of the best endorphin hits around and my lot dance for 3.5 hours every morning.  For sure we can give them moments outside of the space to breathe, but then it's back into the studio as soon as possible. Distraction is also really useful.

Now clearly there can't and shouldn't be blanket rules, this is not a black and white issue. For the student suddenly diagnosed with bipolar who is in a depressive episode, and who is attempting to get the right treatment, college is not the right environment for them, you can't 'push through' that. So it's about having a clinician on hand to advise us how best to help.

Anxiety is through the roof at the moment for all of us, but for some people, they've been living with anxiety their entire lives, so this is just the icing on a really big cake. Yet not many people seem to realise that anxiety is a treatable condition. So why learn to live with the symptoms when you could be living your life symptom-free? 

Some of these symptoms are incredibly nuanced, and would not be picked up by the much-lauded mental health first aiders, just like an underlying condition would not be picked up by a St John's first aider.  Here's the rub though there is no longer a shame about having a bad mental health day, but there's still a shame in actually having a mental illness.

Until we address the taboo that some people were literally born with a genetic loading stacking the odds against them from the off (just like we're genetically loaded to have other illnesses) then this is always going to be an unsatisfactory conversation.

The discussion around wellbeing has (I'll say it again) hijacked the much-needed conversation around mental illness. As one of my students once said, if eating vegetables, taking nature hikes and yoga could have cured their depression then they shouldn't have hit a major crisis. For them, the only solution was a medical intervention, their clinical depression needed a chemical reaction to rebalance them. No amount of broccoli, sea air and downward dog could replicate what their brain actually needed.

Early intervention is key, primary schools are slowly edging towards a whole school approach to mental health, in the interim though colleges should be the final safety net to catch people. 

Out of Control

As we're about to enter another milestone in the Pandemic lockdown, so it seems that the conspiracy theories and speculation about what the future will look like spread quicker than the virus itself.

In the past few days alone I've heard how we're all being brainwashed by the mainstream media (or MSM as the enlightened few all seem to call it - which is ironic as that acronym alone sounds like some dodgy news channel), I've read articles both quoting and misquoting the 'people in the know' as they've fundamentally hypothesised about what the future might look at, as I've read the threads of people's reactions to these hypotheses as though they were now facts.

Similarly, I've read the opinions from my industry peers - the optimistic chant of "we'll be back stronger than before after all theatre always survives" being seen in equal measure to the "this is the death of theatre as we know it". The headlines telling us almost daily that a vaccination or a treatment is seemingly days from being mass-produced to the headlines telling us that a vaccination or treatment will never be found for this constantly mutating virus.

Right now we have a Prime Minister speaking on Wednesday in Parliament stating he's about to start to 'unlock' the lockdown almost like a trailer for his much-publicised televised speech this weekend, yet on Thursday, one day later, Scotland declared that they wouldn't be changing anything soon, quickly followed by the Boris dep of the day telling all of us during the daily briefing to not change anything until Boris says so, followed on Friday, just 2 days later, by Senedd Cymru declaring that they weren't really changing anything either.  It's like we're suddenly in the middle of a game of Boris says but they forgot to tell us the rules, scrap that, it's like they forgot to tell Boris the rules!

In other words - the world is suddenly very confusing. We're all trying to work out in the first place who to believe. We've watched the mainstream media and noted how it's not actually covering some of the horror that UK people are living through whilst gleefully giving us a good news story every day, so we've glanced at the right & left-wing propaganda in a bid for clarity, come up with a few theories of our own based on a hunch and ended up exactly where we started. . . nowhere.

So we start to look closer to home as the global picture is too vast to comprehend.  We look to our friends and families but of course, relationships are complex at the best of times. So it's somewhat alarming to see how our peers and families are dealing with the current uncertainty, plus of course, there's a strong chance that we're physically separated at the moment from our 'go-to' people. The friends and families that can talk us down when things are feeling huge. Even worse than that lots of people are locked-in with the people that pander to our acting out giving us tacit permission to be 'however' we need to be without challenging us whilst thinking that they're helping us. I would suggest that a room full of 'yes people' is exactly why we're in the mess that we're in right now. Not being challenged and binary thinking helps nobody to evolve.

For a lot of people in our industry our work also tends to be an anchor during stormy seas - but now the unthinkable has happened, the show just didn't go on. It literally stopped overnight.

Or to put all of this another way, our lives are no longer within our own control. I can't go back to work until the government tells me that I can. I can't go to my 'escape' - the theatre until the government tells the industry that we can re-open.  So whilst we're essentially freer than ever before - no time restraints for anything, we are of course straitjacketed by the pandemic.

So we speculate.

We each have a different approach to trauma - which after all, that's exactly what this is for all of us. Some people like to look at the worst-case scenario and then be pleasantly surprised when things don't end up so bad, some people need to be eternally optimistic about the future, refusing to see any liquid left in the glass at all, let alone leaving us with a glass half empty. Then there are all the people straddling optimism and pessimism in equal measure and who enjoy exploring that dichotomy aloud.

The thing that we never take into account though is how everybody else is hearing 'our process', and indeed what is the agenda of our public statements (sometimes known, sometimes subconscious)  Throw into that mix a health mix of social media bots and aggravators and we're in a heady mix of chaos right now. 

Somebody throws out their 'theory' or speculates on when the theatres will be up and running and literally everybody jumps on it. Either doing the 'I knew it' line, or doing the 'how dare you write this down line'. Yet for all the 'noise' out there (and boy is there a lot at the moment), you'll always find an opinion or a piece of speculation that will fit your current thinking, allow you to think that somebody somewhere does know what's going to happen next, and therefore you throw your social media support behind them.

The truth is scarier right now though. None of us can predict the answer. None of us truly know whether people will flock back to the theatres relieved to finally get that escape, or whether they'll stay away in their droves. We don't know if 'normality' will happen this year, next year or indeed if we'll need to adjust to a different normal from before. Already I find myself being caught off guard if I see people on the TV greeting each other with any sort of physical contact. Suddenly a handshake seems like a daring move, yet just 2 months ago this was my regular greeting and had been my entire adult life

So I guess that's the crux of it, isn't it? We will all adjust. Life (for the majority of us) will continue and we'll learn to adapt. In order to preserve our sanity maybe that's enough of a surety to help us see our way through the chaos?

Competition - the Pandemic Way

In my recent blog about finding myself in charge of an online college I confessed to never having had a pandemic plan up my sleeve on the off chance that one day the world would suddenly be in lockdown. Of course, hindsight is everything. It's easy to regret decisions made before a global event. Strange to think that from now on a couple of generations probably will eh?

Suddenly we all wished that we had really taken in the Bill Gates prediction that this was bound to happen, or questioned how we had missed the now oft posted speech when Obama told us that this was almost definitely going to happen.

Heigh-ho - we're here now and I guess we just have to get on with it.

It's a strange situation though when literally nobody was ready for something, and within the space of a few days, we were all forced into an environment that we didn't want to be in. We've always assumed that living in the UK we'd be able to leave our houses, nip to the shops, see our friends. All things that we now perceive to be luxuries.

However, everybody being in the same boat has its own inherent problems. Where do we go to moan about our lot, when it's clear that we all have it better than somebody else? The lone person in lockdown yearns for some 'real' company, the family and friends in lockdown yearn to be alone. We have lockdown envy - the 'virtual' grass is indeed greener in everybody else's zoom garden.

With everybody in a forced situation though even a slight social media moan results in a Pythonesque thread of 'how lucky we are compared to Mr/Mrs/Ms/Mx whoever'.

The bottom line though of course is that we all have to just get through this the best that we can, whilst working really hard to see every journey as personal, not an affront to how 'you're' needing to get through this period.

Some people really took to heart the initial social media messages of this is your chance to do everything that you've been putting off for years, though why people felt the need to keep telling us that Shakespeare had supposedly written King Lear, Macbeth and Anthony and Cleopatra whilst in quarantine during the plague I don't know. Talk about a high bar! Then seemingly within days completed DIY projects and baking posts started to pop up on my timeline at regular intervals, each of them more impressive than the one before. In our industry some people really needed (or indeed just chose) to keep being creative, that was to be their own road map through these uncharted waters (talk about a mixed traveling metaphor). Editors and sound engineers have never been in such demand as we attempt to reproduce that most basic of rights - to produce music with other people. Then there are the people who are genuinely using the lockdown to take some downtime, with a constant stream of requests for the next best programme to watch, or recommendations for their next book. At regular intervals, somebody will remind us that we don't all have to do the same thing to get through this. Freedom of choice is still ours (within our own four walls). We are reminded that just surviving this time is actually winning.

Of course, it wouldn't be social media without some conflict, so we have the posts from those people that feel really strongly about how 'the others' are coping during this time, either applauding from the (virtual) wings with a degree of envy or angry that their way of coping has been made to feel the 'lesser' somehow.

So what is the right way to cope during a pandemic and who actually has the right to judge others? Who's right and who's wrong? Who is having the 'worse' time surviving the lockdown? Is it the parents frantically attempting to homeschool whilst juggling all the other demands too? Is it the shielded who feel like they would rather take their chances with COVID, the families, the lonely?  In our industry is it the so-called Corona grads who have had the rug pulled from under their feet at the start of the most amazing adventure, or is it the seasoned pros, who have been sideswiped as they've seen our industry magically disappear overnight?

Which industry has suffered the most? Surely that one is a no brainer - it's 'our' industry. Overnight everybody was out of work with no idea when we could possibly restart again, but then that's true of the bar owners, the restaurant owners, tour operators, airlines, etc The house of cards that we had thought was so safe suddenly crumbled for so many people. Then as if that wasn't bad enough we're all trumped by the people that are literally putting their lives on the line every day when they go to work or the families that have lost loved ones due to COVID?

Of course, the answer is really quite simple - none of us are having it easy. We are all attempting to stay emotionally grounded. It's not a competition.  The safest way through the Pandemic for each and every one of us is to just 'be', to 'be' however we need to be. If you've seen the Pixar movie Inside Out the control console in our brain is literally being controlled by the full range of emotions - seemingly all at once. One day it's OK, it's doable, we know that it's only a moment and moments pass, the next day the affront to our liberty is exasperating, we can't see how this can possibly end well, the world will never be the same again.

Somebody said to me today that they were struggling right now, but they shouldn't be. Compared to others they actually had it easy. The difficulty with this self-imposed scale of entitlement is that we're not giving ourselves the time and space to grieve what's going on right now. It's like there's some pivot that we're all straddling - we can maintain the equilibrium if we deny ourselves the right to be ecstatic or pissed off or scared or whatever.

The pandemic isn't a competition. I put the college online because I had no choice, not because I wanted to look back in a few years' time and be proud of my achievement during a lockdown. If I had to choose the perfect lockdown scenario, without a shadow of a doubt I'd choose the sit in front of the TV and veg out for a few months' approach*. However I have 2 young children to homeschool, a business to run and an encroaching deadline for a new show which I still have to meet in case the theatres open this year, so I don't have the luxury of choice - but then again I don't think that any of us have a choice right now. We just have to get through it.

So let's not make handling this situation a competition. We're all stuck in our own peculiar circumstances, and within those, we all have the right to feel however we need to feel, whenever we need to feel it and get through it however we can. We don't have to diminish our own difficulties just because we can see what we perceive to be something harder going on elsewhere. Let's all try our best to survive eh? It's not a competition.

Stay safe.

*In the interest of full disclosure I should add that this is forever my 'dream scenario', however, were I ever to have the free time to do this my secret suspicion is that I'm not actually that sort of person as my wife reminds me every time I state it. We all have dreams though right?

A College for Life

When I opened The MTA back in 2009 I knew from the outset that I wanted to run a college that would be there for its graduates even at the end of the course.

When I left college (back in the year when dinosaurs roamed the earth), I felt that I'd literally been thrown off a cliff. For sure they'd given me a backpack full of 'tools', and for all I knew they might have packed a parachute too, but they never had the foresight to let me know so I was just left in freefall for a little while.

Now in fairness times were different then, and my course rather bizarrely used to proudly say that they weren't training professionals and they weren't training teachers. . . but then never did tell us what they were training us for? However I got to create music and theatre all day, every day for 3 years, so I didn't care.

However, on leaving I do remember that feeling of being lost out in an industry that seemingly everybody else had a road map for (or would that be sat nav nowadays?) 

Obviously, training is massively different now, and I intended to open a college with a clear end game - to get performers out into the industry. The business side of our profession was going to be 'taught' alongside the jazz hands. I was adamant that 'my' students would know what was in their tool kit and how to use all the different tools. However, I also wanted to be very clear that I had packed a parachute. Hence the college for life policy.

Being a small college I wanted my graduates to know that the door was always open to them. Not just in a 'pop in and have a chat' way but in a very real, practical way. Rehearsal space is expensive, so I could give them that, dance classes are expensive, so they could come back and join in with ours, even prepping a song for an audition is expensive, so we could help them with that. Most importantly of all though, I wanted them to have the same level of pastoral care and mental health support available to them after graduating as they had received at college.

The MTA takes a whole school approach to mental health, we have 2 members of staff on call 24/7/365 (on of which is a mental health clinician) so it made sense for our graduates to have continued use of that resource? After all, if they had already accessed that support whilst training they would have a shorthand to access the same level of support once they'd graduated.  As our entire pastoral policy is a clinician based system it allowed them to jump back into talking therapies etc as and when they needed it. I've never understood the idea of sessions with a counsellor being time-limited anyway. How awful to start talking to someone, open up that can of worms, only to be told that your 6 sessions are up. Your counselling and/or therapy surely needs to last for as long as you need it?

In a poorly researched blog about The MTA last year I read somebody state that this was an unrealistic vision. They stated that we were a business not a 'community outreach programme' (I might be paraphrasing somewhat, but that was the general gist of the article). Yet my vision of the sort of college that I wanted to open extended way beyond the 2-year model that I had devised. I felt that looking after the graduates was a core belief that we had to achieve.  It's an interesting take isn't it to call an institution out for genuinely trying to help? Yet to me it was always a no brainer. 

We don't really start learning until we're out on the job, yet we all need somewhere to go and ask those questions that couldn't have possibly been known about on the course (as each job and each company will pose their own questions). Very often it's after college that all the self-doubt starts setting in. Prior to opening The MTA I had been told that 95% of graduates drop out of the industry within 5 years, and I completely understood that, as every day is a chore at the beginning isn't it (unless you're lucky enough to walk straight into a nice contract)?

 

I didn't want my lot paying all the money to train with us, but then change careers before they'd given it their best shot. I just wanted them to earn their fees back really.  However in order to help them to achieve that I felt that 'we' should be the parachute. Actually more than that - I felt that we were obliged to be their parachute.

Inherent in the vision for The MTA from the outset was ongoing support. 

As the years moved on our #college4life tag has become something of an in-joke to myself and the students, as it truly is more than just a social media hashtag. It's a lived reality if you chose for it to be so.  It's also helped to create an amazingly vibrant community outside of the day to day college. Our graduates are known to the current students (in reality all their pictures are up on the walls, so they are very present at all times). Lots of them come back at various intervals to take part in classes. It can be a successful reboot if that's what you feel like you need. Or maybe you've just missed a weekly sing-song, so you can nip into the whole college choral class and get those endorphins racing around again. 

Since 2012 our graduation has evolved into a thing called a Gradunion. A mixture of a celebration for the new graduates entering the industry, combined with a reunion for those that have gone before. Last year's 10th anniversary Gradunion was particularly glorious, with nearly half of our graduates returning to celebrate both the arrival of the new lot and the college milestone. 

The raft of well-meaning support projects to support the #coronagrads has really wound me up this year. Not because of all the things that are going on, as each and every project is brilliant and being supported by so many generous people and organisations. However, those students have paid money to institutions to fundamentally get them to the finishing line. To kick start their careers, to enable them to graduate. I obviously understand that these are unprecedented times, after all, there is barely a moment in the day where somebody doesn't use that very word BUT it is up to all businesses to adapt and fulfil our obligations (both contractual and moral) as best as we can. It is not up to the kind hearts in our industry to take up the slack.  

Whilst every day at the moment we're seeing colleges come up with really inventive ways to enable them to showcase their students albeit virtually right now, we're also seeing a lot of colleges and universities not bothering. Literally graduates online begging for help. Where's the colleges' contractual obligation in all of this?

We all need a 'parachute' when we leave training, and in truth, I fundamentally believe that your fees should pay for it (although I know that this is a rather unique thought). However as a bare minimum, we need to ensure that our graduates have a back pack full of tools that will equip them in our industry - they shouldn't be on social media trying to work things out. 

Mental Illness is more than just depression

Last year I was really honoured to be asked to give one of the keynote speeches at Equity's first ArtsMind Symposium. I had been invited to discuss the journey that I had been on whilst initiating the #time4change Mental Health Charter, and I also got to discuss the highs and lows of running a college that is taking a whole school approach to mental health.

BAPAM had recently published their consultation paper about the mental health difficulties our industry faces and had also made some recommendations about a more productive and helpful way to move forward. Interestingly they were recommending a whole school approach as the most effective, and also discussed the possibility of moving towards a clinician lead system in drama colleges.  The MTA has only ever operated with such a system, so it was interesting to discuss the realities of this (The MTA now being in its 11th year). The synopsis was this really - early intervention is key, and by getting our community to understand that mental health is no different to physical health, we could help to prevent or decrease a personal mental health crisis. See the physio when you first suspect that there's an injury, and you're more likely to make a quicker (and often stronger) recovery, see a mental health specialist when you first recognise some symptoms and the same rules apply.  The difficulty being of course that most of us recognise early signs of physical illnesses, but very few of us recognise early signs of mental illnesses. Indeed that was the entire point of the charter - to get those symptoms (and maladaptive coping mechanisms) more widely known.

Within my speech though I also spoke at length at how I felt that the mental health conversation had gotten sideswiped by the conversation around wellbeing.  I noted that having campaigned for 6 years to have a more honest conversation about mental health, somehow in the past year or so the conversation had been sanitised. As great as it was to see more and more people recognising their own struggles and indeed naming them as part of their process, or as a way to get 'the message' out there, the conversation had taken an interesting diversion, and one which I felt wasn't particularly helpful.

Mental Health had somehow turned into Wellbeing and in doing so we had lost Mental Illnesses within the discussion. A social media statement about a bad anxiety day usually turned into a list of people saying that it would be OK, that they were around if that person needed somebody to talk to, or people just sharing their own mental health struggles in a bid I suspect to show the original poster that they were not alone. What I noted though was that it was unusual to see a possible solution in the replies. It was rare to see a response asking whether the person had checked in with their doctor. For a surprisingly large number of mental illnesses, you can expect to live in a symptom-free world. Yet the answers to the posts didn't have that expectation or offer up that hope.

Wellbeing was everywhere. For every great mental health article there would be one stating that the 'cure' was much simpler than people realised. One of my students actually wrote a great ranting post about how if it really was as simple as eating a healthier diet (for example), don't you think that they would have tried it? The reality was much harsher, and by 'helpfully' sharing the Daily Mail's latest take on 'How to cure depression' they were actually unwittingly sharing a belief that mental illnesses were avoidable. That it was a weakness of the person, as opposed to a genetic, chemical or environmental cause.

Then somebody else pointed out to me the dangers of these articles. For somebody who is seriously unwell and who has potentially lost their grasp on reality, reading all these 'cures' was actually feeding the illness not satisfying a cure. As they limped from article to article believing that each one would 'make them feel OK', they were also getting more and more unwell.

I noted in my speech that we had completely whitewashed the ugly side of mental illness. How self-destructive it can be, how an illness can almost manipulate a person's personality to make decisions that they would never make when well. Some illness really do take over the person's personality - we've seen it time and time again at college, as people slowly alienate themselves from their friends because reality is moving further and further away from them. I could go on - but you get the picture.

Mental illnesses don't manifest themselves in the way that many people think. The critically depressed person isn't necessarily the one that's telling you that they're low - indeed they're more likely to be the one that's telling you that they're fine. Anxiety isn't just about feeling worried - the physical symptoms are often more debilitating. Basically what I'm saying is what we see on people's social media might be a manifestation of something rather serious going on for somebody, so maybe it's better to say nothing rather than piling on to tell whoever that they're damaging everybody else's mental health. Maybe right now they are so fragile we should just leave them be (as hard as that is).

Our words are powerful and whilst a statement can often feel like an empowering thing to do I wonder if it is? Report accounts to the relevant complaint handles then just block them. Don't go back to see what they've done 'this time' . . . walk away from it. Do we have to announce that we've blocked or reported someone? Do we have to encourage others to do the same? Could we all just use our own autonomy and trust that others will do the same? If it's really bad and you feel really strongly about it, could you sound your battle cry offline? Literally, the world is vulnerable right now, so it doesn't take much encouragement for us all to rush to 'protect' people or in our case an industry that is struggling. However, there's a difference between the lone warrior and the organised hate groups.

We are all throwing the 'Be Kind' hashtag around, whilst very often have forgotten to do the same ourselves. Many people will discuss the impact of a feud on their own mental health, but what 'if' the person that your fighting against is ill and you just don't recognise those symptoms? For sure even an ill person can take responsibility for their actions and their words (unless they're psychotic), but can you be sure that your response won't tip them over the edge? Is the defence of 'well they're not being kind' a valid excuse for us to stoop to their level?

Words matter right now probably more than ever. . . but remaining curious to the possibility of the ugly side of mental illness might make a big difference too.

Stay safe

So. . . I now run an online college?

The MTA's strange academic year worked out well in terms of the CoronaVirus lockdown. We were incredibly lucky that we managed to complete our 5 performance run of our flagship revue show - Something Old, Something New.  Whilst it's important to note that it's not our Showcase, it is an important production to start introducing our graduating year to the industry.

However, our timeframe did mean that we were able to chat with our students before we ended the term and reassure them in person about how we were going to run an online college if the UK did follow the rest of the world and get put into lockdown. We were even able to chat through roughly how it might work.  We were lucky - 2 days later that's exactly what started to happen. Even though we were then on holiday I did a quick live stream to our private group to remind them not to panic as we'd already spoken about what would happen.


I don't know about anybody else, but I must confess I never had a backup pandemic plan up my sleeve ready for a global shutdown, and with no tech department to help me, I think that I undertook the biggest learning curve of my life (and I thought that I'd already made that journey when I opened the 'real' college 11 years ago). However, I had just 2 weeks to create The MTA Online. One of the things that I felt would work in my favour was that when I created 'the other MTA' back in 2008 I had consciously created a course that I could run and monitor remotely. The idea being that after the college was up and running I could go back on tour and continue to run the college in between my 'real work' as an MD*. The college has a policy that all staff have to be currently working, so the online infrastructure was actually already in place and part of our everyday life.  Our classnote system is online, the timetable is online, there's not a day that goes by where we're not communicating with them via private groups, etc. So it was just the actual teaching to sort out <gulp>

So then it was hitting each problem in order of urgency. The priority was to ensure that all the agent 1:1 auditions could at least be offered in an online format.  So I first made friends with Zoom. What a fast-moving world we all live in isn't it? Suddenly we're all speaking about meeting up in zoom, yet most of us had no bloody clue about it before the pandemic.

The majority of agencies immediately agreed to move their auditions with our graduates online, so that was my first relief moment. We wanted to reassure the students as quickly as possible (even though they don't graduate until September I was aware that they were seeing all the #UK2020grad posts going up which were bound to make them anxious even though they were not in the same position as those graduates that had lost their showcase), so back I went online to live stream some more reassurance. I felt that it was important to be 'present' as opposed to just posting notices.

The next job - was to move our 100% vocational course online.  Finally, after a few years of really fighting against the 'establishment' because I've refused to turn our course into a formal qualification (because our industry is vocational and therefore it's the training that's important not the piece of paper in terms of getting you into the audition room), The MTA came into its own. We could literally rewrite the course to ensure that this would be a valuable term for our students. I was so mindful that they were still paying their fees so I had an obligation to give them value for money albeit in a different way. I was also mindful that our industry had literally had the rug pulled from under it. The MTA has a faculty of very loyal freelancers - the very people that had completely lost their income. So I wanted to try and help to support as many of them as possible too. After all, a college is only as strong as its students AND faculty.  I felt that there was a moral obligation to try to help (if possible)

So emails were sent out explaining that we were going online, and if they wanted to continue to teach for us, they needed to work out how to run online classes. My only stipulation was that the classes had to be interactive. I felt that videoed classes wouldn't allow us to watch and correct the students in real-time, and therefore not achieve the aims of the course which would, in turn, impact the progression that we needed the students to make this term (pandemic or not)

Suddenly I had an entire faculty on the learning curve with me. With that cog working away in the background next up we had to move our auditions online for our 2020 intake. Once again I didn't see the value of them sending in a self-tape as we wanted to work with them, we wanted to interact with them. The MTA's whole day audition is all about getting to know the people, not just the talent. Cue several senior faculty zoom meetings as we worked out how best to run the online audition. Suddenly lockdown was our friend, as when we needed volunteers to help us work it out we were never short of students and graduates willing to pop into the 'virtual' room to help us try out our latest idea.  A plan was formed, the auditionees were notified and before we knew it my senior faculty and myself were all in a virtual room with several complete strangers.

This turned out to be our lightbulb day though. Whilst for sure there were limitations online, it also offered up so many great things. In many ways, we actually preferred the online audition, and it's certainly going to prompt a serious discussion once the dust has settled about how we audition people moving forward. We already offer a free online first-round audition in a bid to save people money, maybe there's a way to move the main audition online permanently - saving them a fortune in travel & often accommodation. Maybe we could offer both options? I don't know. . . but definitely watch this space.

Having experienced a few hours in the 'virtual' college, we all started to realise that there were endless possibilities that we could explore. The MTA does a 50/50 stage/screen split anyway, so actually working with a lens between us offers us lots of opportunities to explore. We live in a world where more and more auditions are via self-tapes. What an amazing chance we had to really focus on all of this stuff.

The dance staff met up and all were confident that they could offer worthwhile online dance classes, voice, and acting were easy to transfer online. Strangely enough, singing was the hardest area, as whilst 1:1 singing lessons could happen with ease, group singing is just not feasible in our 4G world.  After much asking around it seemed like my only option was for the students to mute their mics and sing to a screen? Our students are not singing for pleasure, they are singing to enhance their skill set, we're looking at the nuances of group singing. They might have been blending beautifully, their harmony line might have been divine - but the tutor would never know. However, we did know that the 1:1 stuff worked really well.

Still on holiday we had another live-streamed chat with our students (& graduates. . . as we have a college for life policy and therefore I needed to check in with them too), and as part of our 'checking in with your mental health' chat, we were chatting about what people could do during this lockdown, and lots of people started chatting about learning to play 'that instrument' that has sat in their room for years but they've never had the time to learn it. Cue the next idea. We are not an actor-muso course, nor do we aspire to be, however we all know that instrumental skills are incredibly useful to a performer. So a quick check who could gain access to a guitar to check that my plan would be worth it - and suddenly 75% of the college are now having weekly guitar lessons. Learning in streamed groups expect to see something spectacular at next year's revue (she jokes, but not really).  Then a group came to me as they had access to a keyboard, could we teach them how to play the piano? We're currently putting this in place.

In our senior faculty meeting, we were chatting about the fact that literally, everybody was available right now - so we should try to get some good Q&As and masterclasses going, as they'd work well with this format. It would also mean that our students always had something to look forward to. Days and weeks of lockdown monotony were going to hit hard. We needed to offer them something to be excited about. What an amazing opportunity this online term was going to offer us. Of course, being online meant that we weren't limited to UK guests - so off I hopped over to Broadway (virtually of course), and with the help of our friends, we suddenly found ourselves with one hell of a term. Q&As with film directors, Dexter Fletcher & Joe Wright, writer David Eldridge returns to the college, masterclasses with Cassidy Janson & Annalene Beechey, Q&As with Broadway stars Claybourne Elder, Laura Osnes, Julia Murney, Kara Lindsay, with West End stars Adam Garcia and Louise Dearman, plus meetings with producers, casting directors, resident directors AND a private screening of the Desperately Seeking The Exit thanks to the ever marvelous Peter Michael Marino. . . and. . . well, who knows? 

We're on day 3 and already we've discovered new things, but again because we're completely independent we can implement new ideas within hours. From an 'oh no' term, we're seeing our Pandemic Term as an 'OMG we could do this too...  .' sort of term.

My virtual office stays open for a while after regular classes, so students and graduates can pop in if they're struggling or just to say hello. Our mental health clinician is still available to the entire college 24/7/365 and is of course now just offering online or phone sessions, but it does mean that our lot (& staff) have instant access to a mental health professional if the lockdown is particularly hard for them. 

So that's it, within the space of just 2 weeks . . . I now run an online college. I sit in mission control for hours on end looking at screens, opening up zoom rooms, and planning. What else can we do? Maybe I'll revisit this blog at the end of the Pandemic Term to see if it was really as exciting as we currently think that it's got the potential to be.

Stay safe all 

*this never happened. Turns out running a college is really busy

The Mental Health Epidemic within the Pandemic

Last night the unthinkable happened. Theatre in the UK closed its doors. Frustratingly for theatres and producers this came about via a carefully worded recommendation to our audiences as opposed to a directive to them, thereby potentially preventing companies from having a valid insurance claim. Making companies and individuals even more vulnerable than they were already feeling.

I can't be the only one that never thought that we'd see such a day in the UK (or indeed around the world), but here it is and an entire industry is left reeling as each individual tries to work out 'what now?'

Of course we all knew that it was coming. Broadway closed last week so it's been a waiting game since then. The big difference of course is that our American colleagues earn substantially more money than the jobbing actor/techie in the UK. There is more chance that they've saved up for the inevitable rainy day scenario. That said some people just don't have it in them to save regardless of income, so this isn't guaranteed, however the potential to save is there. I don't think that the majority of the UK industry (on and off stage) have this dilemma. We all live in a somewhat hand to mouth environment, and have long since consoled ourselves with the fact that our souls are full even if our bank accounts aren't. The majority of our industry need the next wage packet, which is why you see people closing in a successful show on the Saturday, going to work in their 'crap job' or 'muggle job' by the Monday. In a way it's kept us all grounded for years, it's hard to get 'up yourself' when you know that you'll be back in civvy street within a few weeks.

So suddenly an entire industry faces a very uncertain future. We all go online to tell the world how frightened we are, and we feel the need to let everybody know what our struggle is. Some of us will be resolute, telling our friends that we'll get through this, as after all, a life without hope is no life at all. However now that people have been prevented from going out, the online chatter is at breaking point. Suddenly we're all experts in what the government 'should' have done, we've all understood the logistical variations of this mystery 'virus', we've all researched what every other country has done, and we've all worked out what the solution 'should' have been. More than that, we feel the need to tell everybody about our own discoveries.  Of course the fact of the matter is that none of us have a clue. We're all scared (for ourselves, our loved ones, our industry, even humanity), and are all simply 'acting out' that fear in the only space that's left for us to roam - social media.

We see a 'cure' or a 'prevention' tweet and it becomes our civil duty to share it amongst our friends and followers, as we all attempt to save the world. Of course that's all we've shared is 'fake news', or rather 'fake hope', as hope is the only thing that we have.

I've long blogged about the mental health crises in our industry, and I've always maintained that the industry hasn't created these illnesses, but rather our industry attracts people who are more susceptible to mental illness, as it provides all of us with an altered reality. We can all pretend to live in a different world for a while. A show (ironically given the pressures around doing one), is almost a mental health break. So what now for an entire industry that revels in living in the 'other' now that it's suddenly been catapulted into the here and now, and what's more, the here and now is even more unstable than our industry. To add to the issue nobody amongst us has immunity. For sure there are the wealthy amongst us that can ride this out, but they are few and far between. From graduates to jobbing performers/techies everybody has had the rug pulled from out of them.

People with anxiety who are already trying to make sense of the world have suddenly lost their anchor, people with depression that can see no good in the world can get that view confirmed within seconds on social media, people with OCD desperately trying to control their environment as it is suddenly find themselves in a world that can't control itself. And so the list goes on. The one thing that we can be sure about is that every mental illness will be made worse by this pandemic.  People can no longer run to the theatre to escape their own 'minds'.

So I guess that this is the perfect opportunity to hit these conditions head on. How many people that deliberately keep themselves busy in order not to think have suddenly found themselves in self isolation? As an aside isn't it weird how something like 'self isolation' which sounds like something straight out of a B movie has suddenly become part of our every day language? Anyway I digress.

There are lots of therapies available online - why not check out what's on offer? https://www.england.nhs.uk/mental-health/adults/iapt/ Whilst the NHS is struggling right now there is still free help out there. See the enforced downtime as an opportunity to 'reset' and 'reboot'. How many of you have kept putting it off because you've allegedly been too busy? Well you ain't busy now - get proactive about your mental health.

Limit your online surfing - it'll either make you more worried, more angry, or bizarrely make you feel more isolated. Even in self isolation it's possible to live more in the 'real world'. FaceTime and Skype your friends. I went to pop a post up on one of The MTA groups the other day, and instead opted for a livestream as I was aware that a number of my graduates were either stuck in far away places or stuck in self isolation in the UK. So potentially even 'seeing' and 'hearing' my post was more reassuring than some written thing.  I mean I clearly could have made it worse for some of them, but they had the option to turn me off (and I'm confident that at various times over the years they've yearned to do that - so it was a win/win)

Somehow this will pass, and somehow we will all get through it.
Our industry has an amazing sense of community, and right now we need that community more than ever. As you're checking on your friends to see if they have a cough and a fever, maybe check on how their mental health is doing too? I've long believed that mental illness is at epidemic levels within our industry, and I suspect that the physical pandemic will make those levels raise even higher. Now is a time for actioning help, not living in denial it's a great #time4change

24/7 Equity mental health and well-being helpline: 0800 917 6470

#loveahashtagday

Wow....everything gets 'a day' now doesn't it? Every illness has 'a day', practically every job has 'a day'? What is that about? Is it a hashtag thing? Does 'a day' work? Today is #lovetheatreday will somebody see that hashtag today that has never been to the theatre and think 'I know...I'll give it a go. . . after all they all seem to love enough to give it a hashtag?'

Then who am I to talk about hashtags? I based the entire Mental Health Charter around the hashtag #time4change (I mean I even used 4 instead of for. . . cos that's how things rock in the 140 character world called Twitter)

Originally this blog was going to be about so many thoughts - how it scares me that people are advertising courses just as a 'West End thing'....like theatre stops and starts within a few postcodes? How sad that is, when some of the most creative, exciting stuff happens way outside London. How I didn't think that that was healthy for young professionals - as if that's the only goal, then the majority will fail...and what does that mean to them?

Then I was going to write this about how interesting I'm finding it at the moment, seeing phrases that I categorically know were 'created' by the incredible advertising gentleman called Toby Richards who had donated his time to The MTA back in the day because he believed in our ethos....now being in common usage throughout the industry. How back then I disagreed with Toby over so many of them, as I just didn't think that they 'worked'...but then I remembered that he was a marketing guru for a reason, and I wouldn't allow him to come in and change some of my music. In other words, we all have strengths, and the strongest people are the ones that recognise their weaknesses and work with them.

Then I was going to write a blog about boundaries, and about how important I consider it to be that staff and students don't confuse socialising with networking and vice versa. How strict boundaries should be in place to protect staff AND students from mixed messages that can confuse studio dynamics.

However, one thing just kept coming into my mind...it's Christmas. Christmas is definitely coming. On Monday I started rehearsing this year's panto. . . so I KNOW that it's Christmas very soon.
However, Christmas could maybe even should be hashtagged #crises. Christmas is one of those times when you can be surrounded by people - yet feel so alone. The worse feeling of all.

Actors, musicians, techies up and down the UK will be in 'strange' cities this Christmas, cooking the turkey or nut roast with their panto families, as it seems easier than attempting the Christmas commute, and all the dangers that that entails e.g. will 'work on the line', mean that you're sat on a replacement bus, when you should be on stage for the Boxing Day matinee?

There is no sadder time than seeing everyone so happy, so optimistic for their future, when you are personally struggling.

UK Productions, one of the countries more prolific panto companies has signed the #time4change charter - hopefully, their staff have already received the charter, so people that are already experiencing some mental health difficulties have had warning flags raised.
Some regional theatres e.g. The Nuffield, Wakefield Theatre Royal - have already signed the charter. Meaning that their 'guests' this Christmas, will have easy access to information on mental health crises centres in that area. These things over time WILL make a difference. They are the start of a much bigger conversation.

Then all those thoughts led me to this. . . the crux of this blog...where are all the other colleges? Why is there a resistance to signing up for #time4change? Are people really just so politically driven to think that because another college came up with the initiative they couldn't join up? Or are people thinking that they've got this sussed already? Are your 'policies' really working? The evidence would honestly suggest otherwise.

More and more evidence is being sent or delivered to me about how there already is a mental health crisis in our colleges. We know that you're inundated with people needing your services. We know (as one person told me) that it's like a Tsunami.  Let's face it, we know that the colleges expanded without a thought to pastoral provision, and now everyone is talking about Mental Health, students are using the opportunity of breaking away from home to start to explore their own, deep seated concerns.  Please let's work together and create the most supportive, safe environment for ALL drama and technical study students in the UK. Let's not make this about politics...let's just accept and act on the fact that it's #time4change.

I want to sit in a room with ALL the other colleges and thrash out a plan that could help everyone make the most of their resources, whilst supporting students and staff.

You have to be in it to win it. Rubbish phrase....I know....but our strength here could be in our numbers. Now what was that about recognises weaknesses and working with them?

100 thanks

The #time4change #mentalhealthcharter has now been 'signed' by 100 organisations. 100! 63 agencies have agreed to send out the fact sheet to all their clients, present and future, 7 colleges/training organisations have signed up to promote good mental health provision within their faculties. People within those organisations have worked hard to ensure that their institution can commit to all the points that the Charter asks of them. 4 theatres, have agreed to 'source' and clearly 'signpost' mental health resources to all of their visiting companies. Finally 26 organisations from Accountancy firms to Vocal training groups...including nearly all of the 'new breed' of production company currently producing the goods off West End and in some instances around the World. Importantly this section includes technical theatre too with White Light and the Stage Managers Association agreeing to distribute the fact sheet.

This blog is just a huge thanks to these 100 companies who are trying to make a difference.  Thank you for allowing me to bombard you with emails and tweets. Thank you for making a commitment to do things differently.  Thank you in lots of instances for sharing your stories of why your organisation felt like it had no choice but to sign up to the charter.

The biggest thanks of all goes to Angie Peake who actually wrote the charter.  Donating time to the cause to both write up the charter, and in some instances supporting organisations/people to implement it.

These last 3 months have been such a rollercoaster ride. The excitement as the numbers started to grow, quickly followed by the lows of constantly having to bang on about a subject that just seems so obvious and evident in our industry, but yet wasn't really being addressed.  The highs of working closely with organisations to support them to be able to sign up to the charter, followed by the lows of other people's agendas hindering progress on a larger scale.  The highs of actually connecting with a lot of new people, followed by the lows of being perplexed by long term work colleagues, and even friends, coming up with silly excuses as to why they were unable to commit 'at this moment in time'.

The highs of hearing about shows starting with all the cast/crew being presented with the charter just as a matter of course, followed by the lows of finding out that someone had signed the charter but hadn't actually sent it out to their cast/clients.

The best highs of all - the emails from people that the charter had resonated with, and indeed had helped.  I said at the beginning that even if we were doing all of this for one person, then it would be worth it, but we already know that it's helped more than one.

The campaign goes on, colleges have to sit down and discuss how we can ensure that the Charter's practises are working? How peer supervision will work to keep the charter alive?

More colleges need to sign up! We need to work together to solve this problem. We need more theatres outside of London to sign up...as the chances are that people could find help in their home city. . . but they wouldn't have a clue where to start should they be working away from home.

The charter will be an ever evolving piece of work - however having committed the last 3 months to promoting it, plus a few months before that prepping it, hosting the #time4change conference etc, it's time for me to return to my 'crap' job, as The MTA gets ready to welcome our 8th year group and begins to hunt down a 9th.  It's also time for me to really focus on my 'real' job, as I need to write a panto, and produce some backing tracks....plus tweak an older show...and start work on a brand new show.

Now that we've started the conversation - let's all try not to block it.  Let's keep talking about #time4change and encourage people to commit to it - as therein lies the secret. A simple, free charter, low maintenance to implement. . . but potentially a game changer for a lot of people.

The moral of this story though - never tell a short Welsh person that something can't be done - it's a little bit like a red rag to a bull.  Don't dismiss an idea before you've tried it. Just because you can't visualise it. . . remain curious, and give it a go.

In impro we teach not to block and to be accepting of new ideas.  Not a bad motto in life I reckon.

So. . . . who's next?

Why Wouldn't You? #time4change

We are now on the 4th week of the #time4change #mentalhealthcharter as launched by Mark Shenton in The Stage in July. If this initiative is news to you, please check out an earlier post which sets out how it came about: http://althomasmd.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/its-time4change.html

I remember from last year's fundraising at The MTA for our 'Big Move', as the week's go on, it gets harder and harder to campaign in an innovative way.  I feel like I've said it in as many ways as I can now...I'm even boring myself BUT what makes this so different is that when I get that desire to call it a day, I'm reminded of the contents of the emails I was sent prior to the #time4change conference back in March.  Emails listing some of the appalling ways that people with clear mental health difficulties, were treated as part of their 'training'.  Remembering how one uneducated faculty member can actually, inadvertently do so much damage.  Remembering that if Mental Health Education isn't at the core of a college, and therefore supported by the ruling establishment, students in crises can literally be tipped over the edge.

Just this week I was sent an email by somebody that had approached us for help quite some time ago now, someone who had gone through one of the 'top' accredited colleges, one of the colleges that has already told me that 'they're OK'....'their systems work', and yet this person (who of course could have been the exception) literally slipped through the pastoral net, and had found themselves for years out in the mental health wilderness, not knowing where to look for support.  They contacted us because I 'go on' about the subject, so they thought that I could have signposted where they should go next.  Thankfully in this case we did (signpost), the person was in a place ready to hear, and they're now being successfully treated and their life has changed.

Similarly lots of tweets getting RT'ed' this past week by students (past and present) of 'top' accredited colleges, asking their Principals to consider signing up to the #time4change #mentalhealthcharter. Several of them telling me that this initiative was overdue.  Surely this implies that current Mental Health Policies, however well meaning, need improving?

So here's my big question of the week. . .WHY wouldn't you sign the charter? What have you got to lose? For agents and producers it costs them absolutely nothing. That's all they have to do is a file merge and add the Charter to their standard contracts or welcome packs.  I mean that is literally 5 mins work (unless you're on my office computer which admittedly means that it would take 30 mins....it is most definitely coming up to a much needed trip to a Genius store). The cost to a theatre is minimal. You just have to locate, in your area, the nearest Mental Health crises intervention team, locate a Buddhist centre providing mindfulness and meditation...plus a couple more things, just to add to your welcome pack. So what's that? Getting an employee to spend 30 mins googling that information (hell...we've even offered to help them out locating these places if they really don't know where to start).  The cost to a college? 1 - 2 full days of having a Mental Health Practitioner with you to deliver a speech to your students, explaining WellBeing and giving a Mental Health overview, and to give a training session(s) to your staff.   That is it.  Other than that it's the same as for everyone else - a file merge to add the #time4change #mentalhealthcharter Fact Sheet to the welcome packs.

Simple isn't it?

Inexpensive isn't it?

So WHY are we having such difficulty selling this simple concept?

This week saw the launch of The Stage, Spotlight UK, BAPAM and Equity initiative ArtsMind, prompted by a survey they did back in 2015 http://www.artsminds.co.uk/ launched by The Stage 5 days ago: https://www.thestage.co.uk/news/2016/actor-suicides-prompt-launch-of-artsminds-mental-health-website/ Equity's Louise Granger had mentioned that this web portal would be launching this year back in March at our conference, and it's just brilliant that they've created a one stop 'hub' for performers to access as part of their mental health/well being tool kit. However when I was hashtag checking all things #time4change just a day after the launch of this website (a daily occurrence to ensure that I haven't missed anything important), I decided to hashtag check #artsmind and the amount or rather the lack of hashtags was shocking.  This major initiative that had taken months to build, with 4 of our major industry heavy weights behind it, yet it could barely manage a presence for longer than a few days.

Again my question is WHY? WHY wasn't everyone taking care of 'everyone else' and pointing all creatives in that direction, so that webpage could be bookmarked 'in case of emergency'?

Then I was having a conversation with someone the other night who was asking me WHY I thought that people were reluctant to get involved...and it came to me.  The stigma/fear is so great surrounding Mental Health, people are reluctant to engage in a process that might make them hold the mirror up to themselves.  To engage in our initiative you would need to educate yourself, which might mean reflecting on old behaviours, or indeed there may be an acknowledgement of having a difficulty yourself that has never been addressed.  The current consensus appears to be - if you're talking about it, you have it, and if you have it, I don't want to know. The stigma is alive and well.  Heads are well and truly buried in the ground on this one.

I have consciously never divulged my own Mental Health status whilst campaigning - yet I received a positively vitriolic attack, presuming that I had started this campaign off due to 'my own issues'. Like I was attempting to create a problem in our industry for the hell of it?

So my big question of week 4 is WHY?

If you already have a robust Mental Health Policy in place you would naturally be fulfilling the terms of the Charter = RESULT. Sign up, and let's add your name and status to the campaign.

If you're concerned that it'll take too much time - see above. We're talking a maximum of 30 mins out of your life to fulfil the terms of the charter = RESULT. Sign up, and let's add your name and status to the campaign.

If you're worried about the costs - see above.  Colleges would suffer the only financial penalty, but these are clearly costs that can be absorbed by the organisations in a bid to help and educated the young of our industry, and that after all is our job = RESULT. Sign up, and let's add your name and status to the campaign.

Finally my question is a bit more personal - to those people that I've contacted to attempt to get them interested in the initiative WHY have you ignored the email/tweet (or often both)? WHY wouldn't you just show a basic level of manners and say that for personal reasons you're not interested in this, or you think that it's nonsense or just a simple 'thanks but no thanks'? Every single time you've emailed/tweeted me, I've shown you the courtesy of an answer - WHY aren't you able to do the same.  Trust me. . . I'm very busy too, but I always find time for manners.

So.....WHY wouldn't you sign the charter, and spread the word about ArtsMind while you're at it?

If this has made you interested in Charter - info@theMTA.co.uk putting #time4change as the subject.

PS...if you signed I could stop going on about it. Now WHY wouldn't you want that?

#time4change If Just One Person

#time4change the #mentalhealthcharter is now 3 weeks old. To date 46 companies have signed the Charter. In the wings are 3 colleges seriously looking at it (none of them Drama UK colleges I should add), and a few production companies and a couple of agencies.  

Being in charge of a small organisation it never ceases to amaze me how much discussion has to go on in other companies to make things happen.  EG in our recent Senior Faculty meeting it was suggested by our Health and Welfare consultant that we should offer our students a quiet space during the lunch hour for those people that wanted it.  Within the hour that suggestion was implemented, because I could unilaterally make a decision to take a studio and designate it to be that time.  Now I'm not saying that this is good...if I suddenly became power crazed I could equally have opted to make that studio something far less helpful to the students' welfare.  Fortunately though I'm reined in by a very opinionated faculty, and an extremely interested Board of Trustees who watch my every move.

Having worked in larger organisations, I know that big decisions like opting into the #time4change Charter can take a lot of work. For example Rose Bruford signed the Charter this week. A massive decision by a major and prolific UK college.  Behind the scenes I'm aware that Pat O'Toole worked patiently within her role there until the college were comfortable enough with the Charter to sign. Here's my point really - are YOU in an organisation that needs to sign the Charter? If so....please get that bit between your teeth and stay with it. Don't take no for an answer. Come back to us if there are bits that you disagree with, and let's find a way together that will enable your organisation to sign up.  

The world will only change if each and every one of us takes  a stand for what we believe in.

Should your college sign the charter? Let them know your feelings about it. Ask them to read it. Send it to them. Explain to them how it works.  Take a collective responsibility to get this discussion up and running.

If you do one tweet in support of the charter, as amazing as that is, it is lost within seconds. Social media dictates that we live in a 'rolling news' world, everything lives for around 1 minute(if that really)....after which more news comes in, and the original post is already forgotten.  Those people that follow me on twitter must dread those couple of hours that I've spent every day trying to get this message across, as there's suddenly a deluge of posts talking about Mental Health.  Yes, there are better ways of spreading the word, but we have no budget, and that's all I can spend is time. . . time to keep talking, because I know that I just have the hit the right people on their TimeLines once.  It's a bit like the roulette wheel. I have to keep rolling that ball.

I said today in a tweet that if Equity, Spotlight, the ITC and Drama UK got behind this initiative it would be job done for me.  Imagine a world where with your annual Equity diary you got a copy of the #time4change Charter and a Mental Health MOT sheet (Angie Peake's idea again....not mine).  Check in with yourself how you were doing, and have an annual check that things are ticking along nicely. Any niggles that raise the red flat on the MOT sheet, get yourself along to the Doctors for a check up. Simple.  Go safe in the knowledge that our industry understands mental health issues as well as we understand physical health issues.  

We almost need a mental health equivalent to 'Physio Ed's' don't we? A one stop place where people can get affordable therapy without feeling any shame or embarrasment for being there.  

So...the campaign wades on.  Suddenly organisations that have forgotten about my emails are suddenly responding with me, and arranging meetings...which is just brilliant.  Here's hoping that for each of these organisations there is a Pat O'Toole amongst them, that won't give up until the company/college/organisation is signed up. To be continued ;-)

Drama UK - it's #time4change

Wow what a difference a week makes.  Last week Mark Shenton kindly 'launched' the #time4change Mental Health charter in a nicely worded piece in The Stage: https://www.thestage.co.uk/opinion/2016/mark-shenton-theatre-enough-protect-workers-mental-health/

Mark had visited The MTA a week earlier and as usual our discussion came around to Mental Health issues, as Mark has a well documented fight with depression, and he knows that I've been campaigning for a number of years to improve Mental Health education in drama colleges. In passing I had mentioned the Charter, and, given his history, was interested in his view on it.  So we arranged for me to send it onto him.  It was then a pleasant surprise when I found out that he was going to write about it in The Stage.

The Charter, as seen by Mark, needed a little bit of refining, so Angie Peake (www.counsellingforperformers.co.uk) who had written the document hurried on with the edits so that I could send it out to the various people who had already committed to sign up to it.

Like with the fund raising the year before I remembered how much I hated emailing people asking them to do something so public, however if the truth be told, I'm getting really tired of the fight to get this matter 'out there', so this became the final push to make a small difference. The final mile of my own personal marathon if you like.

Fast forward a week and we have 19 agencies all signed up, which means if they only had 30 clients each - 570 performers this week have received a document, highlighting Mental Health issues. 570 performers have discovered that their agents take Mental Health and the welfare of their clients seriously.  In addition to that we have the Theatre Royal Stratford East signed up...which means that every one of their visiting companies will have a Mental Health reference as part of their orientation package (including Well being/Mindfulness...as it's easy to think that the campaign is all about illness, as in reality it's about prevention).

6 production companies have signed up, meaning that everyone that works for them in future will receive the Charter, and will again be reassured that they're working for an employer who takes Mental Health seriously.

Finally, in the area where this whole bloody campaign started just one college has taken up the mantle.  Rose Bruford, which already had a robust Mental Health policy and pastoral care system, led by the rather amazing Pat O'Toole. Pat came to the conference and has stayed engaged with the process ever since. She instantly went back to work and implemented just some  suggestions that came up in the conference.  Regardless of whether or not they officially adopt the Charter - they have, via Pat, attempted to do something above and beyond, which after all is what this Charter is really about.

In an ideal world of course I would have presented the Charter to Drama UK and asked them to make it mandatory in all of their accredited colleges.  Sadly Drama UK has instead,  resolutely refused to sit down and discuss the Mental Health provision all of their colleges currently provide.  The creme de la creme colleges have no mandatory policies as dictated under the terms of their accreditation (which probably explains why the approach differs from college to college).

Once again back in 2014 I wrote about how I thought that the current system for accrediting colleges was outdated and irrelevant to today's industry http://www.thereviewshub.com/blog-annemarie-lewis-thomasa-stamp-of-approval/ Fast forward two years and 12 colleges have left (included the jewels in the drama college crown that are LAMDA, Bristol Old Vic and RADA) whilst the others limp home with the chocolate teapot that is Drama UK.

So how much longer do we all talk about accreditation in such glowing terms? How much longer before colleges get to throw away the shackles of accreditation and simply adopt a policy of transparency? How much longer do we pay for an antiquated system to dictate what is excellent in drama training in the UK? Those remaining colleges need to step out from the shadows, and declare exactly what it is they are providing, and what their results truly are.  Maybe, just maybe, they could also be accountable for their pastoral care too?

The #time4change Charter in essence takes on a life of its own now - it has got nothing more to do with The MTA, we're merely passing the relay baton if you like, in a bid to get everyone running at the same pace.  Why waste months debating policy....just adopt the charter...job done.  The colleges that pride themselves on getting this performer into the West End and that performer into film, at some point will be accountable for the care that they've provided ALL of their students with along the way. Anecdotally at best this is haphazard, at worse it's downright dangerous.  ALL staff need to be trained, cultures have to change to allow for curiosity to permeate throughout the seats of learning.

I have a handful of batons that I'm desperate to give out. Maybe a few more colleges could follow Rose Bruford's lead and realise that it's people that's important. . . not performers. Maybe they could also see that an addition to their policies could be a good thing, it doesn't say that they've got it wrong up until now - it just says that they want to be better from now on.

My idea? Save your Drama UK subs and put the the money you save into Mental Health ;-)

It's #time4change?

Back in March I blogged about a Mental Health conference, that we, at The MTA had instigated: http://althomasmd.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/mental-health-in-drama-schools-conference-time4change.html This had been borne out of 7 years of quiet, and then not so quiet campaigning to encourage drama colleges to think differently about their 'Mental Health Policies'.  Back in Christmas 2014 I wrote this: http://www.thereviewshub.com/blog-annemarie-lewis-thomas-support-each-other-in-2015/ It was meant to be an impassioned plea to get colleges to look at this ongoing issue anew, but instead I discovered that it did nothing more than raise certain hackles,  It felt like however I approached the subject it was wrong.

Since actively campaigning I have been told (and I confess that I'm paraphrasing here), that I should stop 'going on' about Mental Health, as I'd run the risk of becoming digital wall paper (I should quickly add that this was from someone most definitely supporting the campaign); My stance came across as too aggressive, turning people off from the content (said by the person that practically gave me a geographical reference point when I asked the question where young performers could go when in crises, missing the fact entirely that I was speaking much more metaphorically, and having missed the critical sentence that I'd written, about the fact that when in a mental health crises, some people couldn't get out of bed, let alone go to their GP's for help).  I've written letters to various organisations which have been met with a resounding 'we do all of this...haven't you read our policy?' failing to stay curious for just one moment that whilst their intentions couldn't be faulted, maybe their services were failing to follow through somehow?  I've been patronised, placated and down right insulted by the best of the best.  Whilst screaming from the rafters that we, as an industry need to keep doing more, I've felt my head patted several times, like some naughty but playful dog that just won't 'stop playing'.

Then there are the amazing people that I've met along the way, some long standing associates, some very new, who have reinvigorated the campaign at times when they probably didn't even know that I was just about to throw in the towel (again). How did they do it? Well they just listened and then reiterated that we really MUST do something.

For the conference, I attempted to collate some informal empirical evidence about the silent epidemic that was hitting our industry.  The emails that I received have literally kept me fighting these past 3 months. Story after story of people that had been let down by these so called 'policies', people who had left our industry prematurely due to Mental Illness.  Colleges (or more specifically, unskilled staff at respected colleges) offering up helpful advice like 'the industry is tough get used to it'..right through to the classic 'if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen'.  Brilliant advice for young performers struggling with their own sense of self, and in some instances, even their grasp on reality?

Whilst discussing the campaign with industry friends and colleagues every single person, without exception, has acknowledged that we have an issue in our industry.  People that are struggling, entering our industry (or indeed have been in it for years)...clearly needing help and guidance.  The MTA graduates are constantly returning to college with various anecdotes about how much mental illness they are seeing out there, and how that, even more scary, when they broach the subject with their new found friends, they are being answered with the same scared voices that have engulfed our industry for too long.  Mental illness is not a thing to be talked about . . . it is our industry's taboo.

When famous performers become infamous overnight by breakdowns and illnesses that we can't even name, then we are doing something wrong aren't we?  Stephen Fry walked off a set in 1995 due to illness, and the press nailed him to the nearest cross. The language that they used just last year to explain the 'walk out' included that classic 'admitted' word. He 'admitted' to being Bipolar.  I'm asthmatic - I've never had to 'admit' to that fact...I've sometimes told people about this physical impairment, but it's never involved a full confession.  I was extremely short sighted for years...I never 'admitted' that I wore contact lenses, I told people so that they could share in the same relief that I had when I put my lenses in.

The goldfish bowl of social media has magnified the issue to a crazy degree (pun intended). We no longer wait for a newspaper to publish the 'facts', the audience of that night will tell you within minutes what's gone down at a theatre. We have twitter accounts helpfully telling us the news 'as and when it happens'. We have speculation and rumours flying around before the curtain has come down on Act One.  At least pop stars get a warning from 'an insider' that someone is going to grass on them, so that their management have time to put together a damage limitation plan (usually dressed up as a scoop for one of the tabloids).  Theatre folk don't have that luxury. Live theatre nowadays equals live, real time, gossip.  It doesn't matter what you write, as we have forgotten that we're actually writing about humans...and probably humans in so much pain at that time.  Those same humans go home and read the crap that's been written about them,  if they're foolish they'll try to answer their critics. . . but it's lost. At that moment the 'battle is lost'. The next thing you know what should have been a discrete issue between you and a maximum of 2000 people (usually much less), has become a headline. . . a news story.

Let's go back to my critics though . . . as we don't have a problem in our industry. . . do we? Sarcastic? Moi?

In other words Mental Health and the stigma around it, is still prevalent in our industry.  This amazing industry that accepts everyone for who and what they are, just as long as they have talent. We not only accept, but we embrace flaws. . . maybe to the point that it quashes our desire to fix this problem?

So for all the people out there struggling today, for all the people out there that feel just a bit out of kilter with the rest of the world, but you can't just put your finger on the issue, we've come up with an industry wide Mental Health Charter.  We are looking for colleges, production companies, theatres and agents to sign up to the Charter.  It costs you nothing. . . it contains simple guidelines for each of those areas.  It contains a Fact Sheet that we want to get out there to as many industry folk as possible.  It's your 'break glass in an emergency' piece of virtual paper.  A simple PDF that we ask you to download onto your desktop, or add to a well used folder, so that IF you find yourself with an issue that you're going to need to 'admit to'....you now have an instant reference point to attempt to try and find out exactly what you're 'admitting to'. A reference point that isn't a generic Google search (which is in itself enough to make anyone ill), but a list of criteria drawn up by Angie Peake our Health and Welfare Consultant (who I should add, volunteered her services to do this work), but designed to 'keep it real'.

The #time4change initiative is not the answer  to the difficulties that we all face in this industry - but if it helps one person then it's been worth all of the above, and then some.

We should celebrate ill performers fighting their inner demons, be they dressed up in comedy, addiction, or even meltdowns, in order to go back into work.  To return to a job, which let's not forget, holds each and every one of us, up to public scrutiny night after night.  Or if currently looking for work, an occupation that puts you up for scrutiny and rejection every day. . .without ever telling you why.  A career, which for most people, means only being able to engage in it a few times a year, and even then probably won't be paying you a decent wage.

All of this and yet STILL we brush mental health under the carpet, because I guess it's the ultimate monster.  If it got a hold of so and so. . . are you next? PR machines go into overtime to deny that their clients are 'ill'.  Agents feel the need to cover up a truth, and discretely try to let their client know that there might be something wrong.

It's #time4change.

It's time for all of us within the industry to at least have an open dialogue about Mental Health.  To be able to say, without recrimination that we have depression or anxiety or bipolar or. . . whatever.  For our industry to understand those words without fleeing in a stricken panic. I am asthmatic, I have a pump, I am OK. People will know where to find the little blue plastic thing that I occasionally need to breath.  I am short sighted. In my pre-laser days, people knew where my lenses were for those 'special mornings' when I maybe, just maybe, I'd lost the ability to be thoughtful the night before in disposing of them.  If people suffer from a mental illness they should have the freedom to name it, and we should have the knowledge to understand what that means, and what support, if any that person needs.

It's #time4change

If you'd like a copy of the Charter, and think that it could help inform you, your clients, your production company - just drop me a line at Annemarie@theMTA.co.uk naming the subject as #time4change. It won't cost you anything, but it might make a huge difference to somebody's life. . . if not your own

Mental Health in Drama Schools Conference

So after 4 years of quietly mentioning it, 2 years of positively shouting about it, and about 18 months of screaming in despair about it....I finally decided to do something positive about what I considered to be the plight of poor mental health provision in drama schools.  What better thing to do than to call a conference? To call together all the people interested in this area and then to brainstorm how to ensure that we improved things.

I won't 'go on' again, but the perceived understanding(taken from a variety of International Studies) is that 1out of every 3 people involved in the arts will have a mental health issue at some point in their lives.  This is higher than the National average of 1 in 4.  At The MTA we've always had a unique take on this area insomuch as we've made it one of the cornerstones of the course.  There is no stigma around Mental Health, all the students understand various mental health issues, and most importantly of all most check in with our Health and Welfare consultant at some point during their training (and indeed after).  H&W in this instance happens to be Angie Peake who is a dual registered nurse and therapist, who has the skill set to actually diagnose mental health illnesses, and then as she also happens to be a nurse prescriber is also able to liaise with the GPs etc as to what the best course of treatment is, and finally is able to discuss a relapse prevention plan with the student.

So the conference was called being very clear that we were going to be discussing our unique model..however as we acknowledged in the conference we could only do this because at any time the maximum students we could have would be 44.  Even that was pushing our resources sometimes, but we could do it!

Since I've started shouting about Mental Health I've successfully managed to polarise friends in the industry. There are some that have found me to be the annoying fly that won't go away, but the one who can't be ignored, however the majority of the industry just agrees with me that there is 'an' issue.

I advertised the conference for 4 months on FB and twitter.  I also put out a request for people to tell me their experiences of Mental Health awareness at college. Though not inundated with stories, I didn't hear one good thing (with the exception of The MTA lot that wrote in, who mostly acknowledged an illness, said that they had been helped through it by Angie, and informed me that they were now having a lovely time carrying on with the rest of their lives).  The stories that I was told were shocking and dangerous. Staff saying completely inappropriate things to people, which they've continued to carry with them to this day.  In a few cases inappropriate 'treatment' at colleges had resulted in people not going on to have the career that they would have liked.  Now even reading the emails with a realisation that I was hearing a 'one sided' argument, and that the person could have been misinterpreting what a teacher was saying to them...it was still bloody shocking.   People bravely wrote of their experiences purely in the hope that by writing the email, they might make a difference.  Their voice (though anonymous) would be finally heard.

A few weeks before the conference The Stage had done a 'Green Room' feature (which is set out like an informal Green Room discussion between actors all talking under a pseudonym), on Mental Health in the Arts. The feature was shocking - the ignorance displayed by the actors was terrifying BUT if that was the perception of 'well' people in the industry, then at the very least we had an industry that needed educating.

In the build up I'd had several conversations with people about the conference, and indeed reassurances that 'so and so' would be there representing 'such and such' institution. Interestingly a few people that I'd contacted about the conference who had been extremely public about their own mental health struggles had failed to connect at all.  Still I increased the tweets and FB posts right up until the day. A big shout out here actually to @WestEndProducer who was a big twitter supporter, never failing to RT when asked (unlike lots of other tweeters with large followings)

Then came the day of the conference and I was literally inundated with messages from people wishing me well for the conference, and suddenly revealing their own mental health pasts, and again stating that something had to be done about it. I felt like the Mother Abbess in the Sound Of Music hearing all these 'confessions'.  Yet why were they all so hidden? Is the stigma around Mental Health even worse than I realised?  I should add that I had been thinking that way for quite some time, as since I've been blogging and shouting about it, The MTA's phone had started to ring, not with the usual student enquiries, but this time from people saying that they didn't know where to go, but they were in trouble, they were ill - please could we help them? They'd read some of my blogs or had seen that I was 'going on ' about mental illness so maybe I could point them in the right direction.  Hell at one point even a major production company contacted us in order to have some assistance on a Mental Health issue.  To be fair the only direction I can ever point anybody in on this topic is Angie, who, as far as I'm aware always helped them out.

The conference was set up to be time limited, to ensure that we could remain focussed and on topic, as it's so easy to drift. Although we set a rule up about protecting anonymity all the 'delegates' have indeed tweeted to say that they were with us, so I'm not breaking any confidences when I say that we had someone from a FE college (their identity remains protected I believe), Susan Elkin from The Stage, Pat O'Toole from Rose Bruford, Laura and James the co-founders and Principals of the Dorset School of Acting and Equity, who impressively had sent a senior member from their main office plus Adam Pettigrew the Chair of Equity YMC...and ............well that was it.

I completely applaud Equity for sending 2 senior members, in an instant showing how important a subject they considered this to be. I'd go so far as to give them a standing ovation given that I had gone a few rounds with them on Twitter over this topic many a time.  Similarly great to see our industry's paper there ready to report on this important and life changing subject...but where were the other drama colleges? Drama UK who I've always maintained are a joke, didn't show, in spite of being sent a reminder email a few days before (which of course was acknowledged by an automated response. No doubt they were over in China or somewhere building up their brand awareness). However where were the course leaders that on twitter always publicly comment on my thoughts about Mental Health, and always ask to arrange a coffee to discuss the topic...and who have never, ever followed through?  Where was the Pastoral team member from another major college who had had an extensive email exchange with me over the conference, agreeing that something needed to be done, and stating that they had already popped the date in their diary? Where were the actors, who had been very vocal with me about their own struggles during college, and telling me in no uncertain terms that they would be at this conference as something had to be done?

10 of us in total were in that room, and do you know what the saddest thing of all was...that had exceeded my expectations.  I knew that all those people wouldn't turn up.  Everybody today is a social network warrior. They'll shout about stuff on FB, they'll press 'attend' to all the political events and rallies. They'll write posts and share posts about how we should be implementing social change. They'll moan and rant about simply anything...but when it comes to leaving their homes or offices to actually implement that change....nothing.  Of course there will always be the anti establishment extremists who turn up at any event ready to fight whoever over whatever, but they're not the people that we're trying to engage here. I'm talking about the everyday actor who knows that this industry is struggling (and I know this because as well as seeing it myself, they've told me).  Talk to me about your time at college when you witnessed people going through so much pain, with so little help. Oh that's right, you will  talk or write to me about that 'poor' person, but you won't go and sit in a room one afternoon in a bid to help the next poor sod going through the system?

As it turns out the conference was extremely useful.  We all sat around and nodded as we shared experiences of mental traumas in college.  Even in that room the 1 in 3 was sounding like an optimistic figure.

Equity were very much on the front foot, and had some plans underway which might help the issue somewhat.

However there IS still an issue here, and if anything Drama UK being useless has made it even harder. All of the colleges, big and small, should have a mental health policy..but you know a policy means nothing.  It means that someone sat down, like I'm sat writing this blog, filling up a word document, with all the right 'things' that we'd want them to say, no doubt hitting on the buzz words of the moment.  Here's the rub though.....it don't mean a thing, if in practice your staff and your students don't understand Mental Health.  A person in crises won't just suddenly knock on a stranger's door to tell them their issues, more than that, if they're in crises, they might not even know that they're in crises. Good mental health policy (as witnessed at the conference actually) showed that these things had to be 'picked up' not just ignored by staff and students, or put down as 'being a bit off', or 'having the bad day'.

Who does now regulate drama schools? Or indeed does it matter? Should good Mental Health policies (and by that I mean the ones that actually deliver....not like one that I heard about that got 'put on the table every time that there was an inspection') almost get a Kitemark, to show that they operate within an agreed set of guidelines (or at the very least are attempting to)? If so, who's to hand out the elusive 'marks' and then who's going to go around every year and check that they're being upheld?  It almost needs a 'secret shopper' approach to ensure that standards are upheld.

So lots of questions still to be answered, but at least we started.

Ironically it's not my students that I'm worried about, I know that we're implementing an active Mental Health policy.  I'm actually fighting for seemingly the majority of the rest of them. The stunning teachers, like the other ones in the conference, are fighting for their students that they can't get hold of because they're swamped and over subscribed.

How to convince a 'business' to invest in the invisible that won't pay back a dividend for years? Invest in your students today and don't see any reward for years? As that's what we're asking.  The payback for good Mental Health would be experienced throughout the entire industry (hell CSM's wouldn't know what had hit them). First though...how to get everybody to leave their homes and offices to have the discussion?