Can I ask your opinion re this?

[ilikeyoursleeves]

I work within mental health and within our service we are thinking about changing the name of our service to something less stigmatising. We are thinking of inviting some patients to voluntarily come along to a lunchtime meeting (lunch included) to get them to suggest new names for the service which will then be put in a questionnaire so all patients can vote on their preferred name.

My question is this- do you think you would attend a meeting like this in person (just thinking of the time to get there, time off work, being around other patients etc) or do you think it would be better if you could just suggest a new name via the post?

Thanks for any responses :)

I think it would be much better to suggest a new name via post, or email etc.

Do try and get the focus group going, people will contribute much more and a team effort will go down better in the long run.

Perhaps you could offer something else valuable to your service users that day to entice them, a workshop or something? Good luck!

I wouldn't - well not when I was actually unwell. it was hard enough to find the energy to do everyday things, let alone go to a meeting to discuss a name change.

It would depend how i was feeling on the day, i think id rather do it by post or email.

Ha, make sure you don't do what my local service did.

I'd been referred for a ME/CFS programme to a hospital department with a named building (rather than "Oncology", etc), which sent letters with no mention of the department and gave phone numbers of answering machines with no mention of the department.

And a couple of months later I got a letter asking for my opinion as a "user of our Mental Health services".

Tho' actually as the first thing you saw when you went in was a cupboard marked "CBT materials", it wasn't exactly news. Still, the absurd and ineffectual attempt at deceit did make me feel just that teensy bit more patronised.

If you really want to be less stigmatising, do less of this. It's pretty dehumanising. And I know all departments have staff who behave like this, but if stigma's important enough to spend money rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic changing the department's name, it's important enough to tackle staff behaviour.

That sounds harsh, and I feel I should end with a paean to hard-working, undervalued, overstretched MH staff. All true.

Thanks for all the feedback, it's all really helpful. :)

Definitely post and email for me.

I would prefer to be able to do it anonymously and/or via email.