10 December is Human Rights Day, when we mark the 76th anniversary of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. To mark the occasion, Wendy Health in Mind Chief Executive, reflects on what centring human rights means for us.
Sometimes when we think about Human Rights, we think about situations far from home and at times human rights can feel quite remote and complex. They are often associated with heated legal arguments and ‘big’ thinking rather than informing all that we do.
Sometimes when we think about Human Rights, we think about situations far from home and at times human rights can feel quite remote and complex. They are often associated with heated legal arguments and ‘big’ thinking rather than informing all that we do.
However, at Health in Mind, we recognise that human rights are rooted in what we do every day. As Eleanor Roosevelt famously said, human rights begin “in small places, close to home.” For us, this means within our buildings, in our local communities, and everywhere else we operate.
Human rights are built on the values of fairness, respect, equality, dignity, and autonomy. They’re designed to protect our rights to be treated with agency and humanity. A human-rights first approach means centring people’s lived experience, and giving them the space to decide what support they get and how they need it. That’s especially important when it comes to sectors like mental health, where many people involved in seeking and providing support have experience of being disempowered, disregarded, or left out in the cold.
Human rights are rights and freedoms that belong to all of us and that’s why it’s so important that all that we do in Health in Mind is viewed through a human rights lens ensuring that people – those who use our services, our staff and volunteers and our local communities- are at the heart of what we do.
Working with a human rights approach means empowering people to learn about and understand their rights what they’re entitled to, supporting and advocating for each other, and most of all making sure that everyone, whether they’re providing or participating in support, has a voice in decisions which affect them.
We believe that the best solutions emerge when everyone’s voice is heard and it was vital to us that we co-produced our strategy Sharing Hope together with people accessing our services, our volunteer and staff team and the communities in which we work. Our commitment to participation- which is a fundamental aspect of human rights – was further explored during the first year of our strategy as together we agreed our ambition for engagement, involvement and co-design within Health in Mind. We are committed to fostering a culture of meaningful involvement and co-design, engaging people accessing services, staff, volunteers, and local communities across our organisation.
This year we worked with THRE (Third Sector Human Rights and Equalities), to provide our staff team with opportunities to learn more about taking a human rights and equalities first approach. This helps us to ensure that human rights do not just appear as words within our strategic plans but are realised in every way, every day across our work.
On Human Rights Day, we want to restate our commitment to ensuring that human rights sit front and centre of our work:
- That people have access to support when, how and where they need it
- That support is driven by those receiving it and is offered regardless of background, ethnicity, gender, or socioeconomic status
- And, finally that Health in Mind offers not only a supportive environment but that we empower people to seek help and have their voice heard without fear of judgement.