Community support is not just beneficial for good mental health; it’s essential. And it’s for this reason that community-based family and youth mental health services are so committed to making a difference. But, unfortunately, the impact of these initiatives is often affected by a variety of social and practical challenges.
Developing community mental health programs can be difficult enough without having to worry about visibility, sending the wrong message, funding, and how to analyse outcomes. There’s an African proverb that goes, ‘If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.’ This saying perfectly captures the impact that community can have on our success in life – and also how professional mental health marketing can help your campaign.
As professionals in mental health marketing, this page can walk you through the ins and outs of creating impactful community wellbeing services. This includes why community mental health support is important, why community-led mental health programs sometimes fall short, and how to effectively promote your mental health services.
‘Community’ means much more than the location where a child or family lives. It’s the network of support that surrounds a young person: their family, friends, peers, neighbours, teachers, and mentors.
Being part of a community helps us feel less alone. That no matter what we’re experiencing, we’re scaffolded by those around us. A strong sense of community can make us feel connected and as if we belong, emotionally supported, encouraged to take action, and accountable. Each of these factors can make a tangible difference to mental health.
In fact, there’s a wide range of research that supports the idea that a strong sense of community protects the mental health of young people. For instance, positive family and school environments are associated with lower health risk behaviors.1 What’s more, a sense of community is linked with lower symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress.2
This evidence suggests that community wellbeing services should continue to be promoted, especially as the mental health of teens has been on the decline in recent years.3 Amongst other essential services, the community can offer mental health education, youth mental health prevention programs, and early intervention mental health support.
However, due to systemic issues like stigma, underfunding, fragmented coordination, and difficulties reaching certain demographics, community mental health programs can struggle to achieve visibility and engagement. This is where the right approach to marketing can make a difference.
But before we discuss ways you can make your community youth mental health services stand out, let’s take a closer look at the reasons why they can fall short in making an impact.
It’s an unfortunate truth that local mental health services sometimes struggle to make their mental health campaigns visible or engaging. This can happen for a variety of reasons, but in the following sections, we explore some of the most common reasons why.
When family and youth wellbeing programs are commissioned without real input from those they’re designed to benefit, these programs often fail to meet the community’s needs. Expertise needs to be coupled with the lived experience of those it serves, so researching what the community requires can increase trust and engagement with programs.4
People with more knowledge of mental health issues are more likely to be aware of mental health campaigns. But, unfortunately, they’re likely not the demographic that needs them most. This shows that there’s a gap in how campaigns are advertised and who they reach. A diverse approach to messaging, for instance, one that utilises many platforms and uses inclusive language, may have more of an impact.5
When adequate funding and resources aren’t available, a campaign can struggle to achieve and maintain visibility and engagement. Further, staff turnover can be high, meaning that evidence-based inconsistencies and long waiting times become more likely.6 In these cases, a campaign may need to define a mission statement based on the public’s needs and create a funding proposal.
Different groups experience mental health issues in varying ways. For instance, females are more likely to show internalising issues, whereas males may express their difficulties in more externalising ways. This means that youth mental health services should base their approach on the demographic the campaign is intended for.4 Otherwise, the likelihood of the messaging falling flat may be high.
While each of these factors can contribute to the lack of success of community family wellbeing initiatives, they’re by no means the only ones. Issues like a lack of collaboration between services, trust regarding confidentiality, and staff burnout can also lead to less-than-desirable results. But awareness of these issues when designing youth mental health services, and seeking the right support, can make a world of difference.
Community plays a vital role in healing and recovery in mental health. But when it comes to promoting the child and adolescent mental health services communities need, the planning stage often falls flat.
In the following steps, we take a look at how to promote family and youth mental health services in visible, trustworthy, and engaging ways. During any stage of this process, professional marketing services for community mental health programs can help.
As we discussed earlier, a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work for mental health awareness and engagement; impact-driven mental health programs are always based on the needs of the communities they target. Therefore, some planning may be required before immediately launching into creating a campaign.
Research into the community’s main concerns, as well as people’s awareness of mental health issues, can give you targeted insights into what it needs. For instance, conducting clinical audits of output measures or surveys of attitudes toward mental health could increase your understanding.
The research and development process is key to putting the community’s needs at the heart of a campaign. For example, it could help you determine whether community mental health education is what’s needed or if crisis support for young people is more in demand.
Community wellbeing services can’t operate off goodwill alone. It’s often important to acquire provisions for resources, such as safe spaces, staff efforts, and evidence-based youth mental health programs.
Once the community’s needs have been identified, a clear mission statement can be created and outlined in a local authority funding proposal. These proposals often have to take a systematic, structured approach, which outlines the current gap, what your solution to this gap is, and how you plan to execute this solution. Mental health marketers are skilled in developing this protocol based on the background, methods, timeline, and goals of the project.
A lack of collaboration with other community-based mental health services can lead to poor visibility and engagement. So it’s important to develop a cross-community strategy when creating youth mental health services. For example, youth counselling services and school-based mental health programs can join forces to ensure higher levels of community mental health literacy and support.
The right approach to marketing can help community services collaborate by defining clear goals, establishing channels of communication, and aligning roles.
Trusted community mental health services are visible, accessible, and inclusive. But unfortunately, campaign efforts to reduce stigma and attract attention often backfire and can even compound stigma.7 So the first step in gaining trust is to aim for inclusive, person-first, and trauma-informed youth services that communicate their message in non-triggering ways.
Secondly, for campaigns to be visible, they need to make use of multiple platforms, such as community-based advertisements and online messaging. Search engine optimisation (SEO) can make sure the community’s eyes land on your online efforts. This involves using commonly searched keywords (amongst other techniques) to ensure your webpages rank high on search engine results pages (SERPs).
By taking these steps, you will not only be more familiar and visible to members of the community, but they’ll also trust in the type of language you use and be more likely to engage.
Considering the short- and long-term outputs of youth mental health services is important for accurately determining the impact and future planning. There are multiple ways of doing this, for example, through quantitative analysis, qualitative analysis, website metrics, and so on. This step can help you better understand the community’s needs and the direction of any following evidence-based youth mental health programs.
It goes without saying that community approaches to youth wellbeing should follow certain guidelines when creating campaigns. However, when analyzing the outcomes of a campaign, confidentiality, consent, and safeguarding must still be considered. Mental health marketers are trained in data protection, ensuring that the health and safety of families and youth continue to be protected at all stages.
Communities are the backbone of mental health support. When we feel lost, our community can become what tethers us, helping us navigate difficult times and reinforce social bonds. For this reason, community-based family and youth mental health services can make a real difference to many people’s lives.
Whether your community needs support with reducing stigma in youth mental health or creating family-focused mental health interventions, PsychWrite can help.
We’re different from other marketing agencies in that we’re qualified mental health professionals first, and expert marketing specialists second. This doesn’t mean that our marketing skills are less than those of other agencies; instead, it means that we put mental health at the forefront of all our strategies.
During each stage of the campaign, we can assist in practical and strategic ways. For instance, perhaps you need guidance on the right psychological tool to assess the community’s needs. Alternatively, you might require SEO support to increase visibility or impact. Or maybe you need quantitative and qualitative analysis skills to determine the outcomes of your efforts.
If you’re interested in hearing how we can help your community wellbeing initiative thrive, reach out to our team. We’re more than happy to discuss our services and how they can align with your needs.
