Time to Talk Day is focused on having the conversations that help to break the stigma surrounding mental health through the power of small, everyday conversations. A key focus of Jonathan’s Voice is to reduce the stigma around opening up about mental health; to speak up before reaching a point of crisis. This is something that Jonathan in whose name the charity was founded, found so hard.
Time to talk, and also time to listen. It can feel very hard to know what to say, however willing a listener we are. While we’re told it’s good to encourage people to talk, we may not know what to say or fear we could make things worse.
At Jonathan’s Voice we have resources that can support you.
A short video (9 minutes) with thoughts from two IP professionals about helpful ways to approach sensitive conversations
Taking the Conversation Forward
A Z card “Taking the Conversation Further
Hard copies available, please email val@jonathansvoice.org.uk
Time to talk is not just for one special day, but for every day, not just for the tricky conversations but for what might be seen as the mundane and the ordinary. It’s about the man delivering my groceries who told me how pleased he was that he’d had a bit of extra time to talk with one of his customers whose husband had recently died. It’s about the lady I stopped to say “hello” to who told me I was the first person she’d spoken to all day. It’s about the neighbour who just drops round to have a chat.
It’s about the casual conversations that can turn into anything but. During a short train journey the lady sitting next to me and I got chatting, just ordinary things. By the end of that journey we had discovered that we were both the mothers of sons who had taken their own lives. The connection and emotional warmth with a stranger was strangely comforting.
There is time to talk every day.
Val McCartney
Co-Founder and Trustee Jonathan’s Voice.
