The Mental Health Matters Initiative, run by Amy Skipper and Kayla, is a youth activism organisation advocating for a series of systemic fixes to address the mental health crisis in Aotearoa. I sat down with Amy and Kayla to discuss their organisation, their issues with the mental health care system, their plans to fix it, and some of their larger issues with youth activism in society.
How did the Mental Health Matters initiative begin?
Amy: So the Mental Health Matters initiative was created nearly a year ago. In 2021, for a social studies project, I created a petition, which was demanding the government to put more funding into private and public mental health care services. This came about not only because it was an assessment, but because it was a chance for me to really express my frustrations that I had experienced, trying to better my mental wellbeing. I had one session in the public system with a ‘health improvement practitioner,’ and it didn't really go great. It felt very clinical, very unsafe, I didn't feel like I could really be honest and open. So I left that feeling a little bit dejected and my mum said, ‘well, that was a bit of a mess.’ We tried booking another appointment, but they were too busy and we couldn't get another appointment soon enough.
I was fortunate enough that my mum was able to take me to the private sector, and where I found care, and now I'm in a position where I can really advocate. But that care in the private sector I got really came from privilege. Not everyone has access to that, and I think that that is awful. Mental health care should be an inherent human right, and everyone should have access to the same care. Everyone should feel that there are places that they can go to truly talk about their feelings. So I created this petition. It got a lot of support, and it was then that I realised, this is a massive issue that needs to be advocated for by youth, on a much larger scale than my petition. So that's when I created the Mental Health Matters initiative. I called on people in my local community, ‘who wants to jump on board into this kaupapa?’ Let's see where we can take this because there is a massive need for advocacy in this space. We need people to actually be speaking up about this issue, specifically for youth, considering the specific contexts and challenges that youth face. That is more or less how the Mental Health Matters Initiative was born.
And Kayla, how did you get involved?
Kayla: So I got on board late last year. I've known Amy for a few years now, and I've always been really passionate about mental health and mental health care. I want to get into mental health myself, when I am out of school. So in 2022, applications opened up to join the team. I basically went ‘awesome.’ I wrote a message about how important mental health advocacy was to me, and my experiences, as well as how I wanted to help people. I joined the team, and I've been a part of it ever since.
How has it been so far for you?
Kayla: Oh, I love it. It's such a wonderful team, it’s a great environment. It is just genuinely so wonderful to have so many people from throughout the Wellington region who have all these different experiences coming together with their own unique skills for this kaupapa. It's lovely to be a part of.
When you started the Mental Health Matters Initiative, what were some struggles that you had to work through to get to where you are now?
Amy: I think the problem with youth activism, and working in these spaces is that it's very work intensive. I personally have so many things going on. I'm a full time university student, I work two days a week, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but mentally it can be quite heavy. Then obviously I'm running MHMI, so it can get quite overwhelming. Another thing is that as a young activist, and the undermining that you get from adults and people in power for being loud and young, you second guess yourself a lot. That’s something that I've personally struggled with. As soon as I get questioned by an adult, there's that inherent reaction where I feel like I have to trust them because they are grown up. But you kind of have to take a step back and think, ‘oh wait, there is an issue here. My voice is just as valid.’ It can be really intimidating, entering a space of political activism, especially when that space doesn’t inherently welcome young people.
Can you elaborate on that point of young people being invalidated by adults in power?
Amy: Firstly, I just want to say that it’s a generalisation, there are plenty of adults who have been really supportive of MHMI, like Matt Doocey and Chlöe Swarbrick, as well as my parents. Couple of examples is, this is before the Mental Health Matters initiative. So this was my personal activism, but kind of the start of it. So it's kind of in company now with under the umbrella of it was when I was presenting the petition to the select committee, and providing my oral evidence and went off sitting there thought, Oh, my goodness, it's so great to hear from young people, this is so important, got the report back, they didn't really listen to any any of it and kind of just kind of ignored all of the evidence so that I feel like it's a pretty strong example of we want young people to contribute. But are we actually going to listen, we'll think about it, we'll see if it's convenient to us at the time. Secondly, and this is kind of more on a minor scale. But this is something that we've always been cautious over the Mental Health Matters initiative is that you're quite vulnerable. You're entering spaces where lots of adults who feel like they have control. An article was published last year on the Newstalk ZB Facebook page, and I got called a nutjob, saying that I don't know what I’m talking about. So those are a couple of examples of that, you know, when you're entering the space and those underlying feelings like an outsider. And I'm not sure if Kayla has experienced any of that. But those are some of my personal thoughts and feelings.
Kayla: I definitely agree. A lot of the time, you'll be saying something that you’re entirely confident speaking about, that you know about, that you’ve researched. But then if you're speaking to an adult, and say, ‘Oh, are you sure about that?’ I still have that experience where my confidence crumbles for a moment. So I say to myself, ‘well, what if I am wrong?’ Because the adults are so confident of themselves, they seem to believe that they have experience I don't, therefore they understand this better than I do. That's not necessarily something that people intend to do, but it is definitely something that you see a lot as a youth activist.
What's an accomplishment that you've been really proud of?
Amy: I have to think about that one, because there's quite a few. I'm gonna say the thing that I'm most proud of, and our biggest accomplishment is that we have created a community that feels really open and safe about talking about mental health. It's really reaffirming to see what we want to see on a bigger scale start to happen in the groups around us, because that's how change happens. That's how grassroots activism works, it starts on that smaller scale and it balloons up. So that's something that I'm really proud of. Another big accomplishment is when we get people talking to us about how critical it is for them to see people talking about mental health. Or even just to hear the words, ‘your voice matters,’ in the context of mental health. That's really important. And that's something that I treasure and I think is a massive accomplishment. I'm really excited to see where the momentum behind that goes.
Kayla, do you have anything to add?
I think it's been really wonderful to see how our community has built up, and when you work on something like this, for me, there's always that worry that it will fizzle out and people won’t care. But as time has gone on, I've had more and more people come up to me asking about the Mental Health Matters Initiative, wanting to know more, wanting to understand more. A while ago, I was at a friend's birthday party and this girl that I didn't know very well came up to me and said, ‘I really have to sign your open letter, but I'm confused.’ She really wanted to understand. She really felt like she could talk to me about that, that I would listen to her and help her understand. That was a really nice moment for me.
How does it feel when people come up to you and acknowledge your work?
Kayla: For me, it's a little bit terrifying, but also, so wonderful. Because they see us and see the work that we've been putting into the Mental Health Matters Initiative. They want to know more, and that's kind of terrifying, but it's also so amazing, it's the best feeling. They recognise this work, they want to know more.
Amy: When I have people come up to me, and tell me ‘it is amazing what you've done,’ or ‘I saw your post about antidepressants,’ it reminds me why I do this, why we have this team and why we all work so hard. When people come up to me and start talking to me about mental health and policy, I jump into it. You have some of the most genuine and amazing conversations with those people because they're coming to you from a place of love for your work, and then you get to talk about your work, and it builds up from there. So it's honestly one of my favourite things, and that's why I love going to youth events. It’s amazing.
Going into the future, what do you want to see for the Mental Health Matters Initiative?
Kayla: We don't necessarily have an end goal at the moment. First and foremost, a lot of the action we will take really depends on what happens after this election. Obviously, the ideal would be that the new government comes in and they fix it all. But realistically, what's more likely to happen is that based on what kind of government gets in, we’ll have to respond to that. For example, if National gets in, they want to elect a minister for mental health, which we also support. At some point, we want to hold a rally outside Parliament to bring the issue of mental health right to parliament's doorstep. To make sure they know it’s something they can’t just put a symbolic ‘solution’ over, and forget it for the next three years.
Amy: When the next government comes in, we have to play it by ear. Lots of things can change within a political scene very quickly, or very slowly. But there are going to continue to be issues with people's mental health, you can't fully solve mental illness. So even if we have a system that optimises care, I still think that there's going to be a need for an advocacy platform, to just talk about experiences. That’s what my vision is for, that we keep holding our leaders to account because they can't keep getting away with ignoring it or treating it as just an election issue to get votes. We want to be providing a place for young people to share their experiences, speak up about what they're going through and let them know that it's actually okay to not be okay. That mental health is something that we need to be talking about. Because don't talk about it, it can be really dangerous.
What are some specific measures you want to see taken to address the mental health crisis?
Amy: So what we want to see when it comes to an effective mental health system is we want people to access care in ways that fit them. We don’t want to see the main way of accessing mental health care as through a GP, in this very clinical way. How can people be accessing mental health care within their communities, in places where people feel safe, like Marae or community centres. We want a system that takes kaupapa Maori into consideration, which takes different cultures into account. We want to see mental health treated holistically, by a case-by-case basis, because you can’t treat it in the same way you would treat a broken arm for instance. We want to see a system where our mental health workers are taken care of, because if they aren’t looked after, the entire system falls apart. What we see today is a system where those workers aren’t looked after, they’re left to deal with an incredible amount of demand, in unworkable conditions. We want to see the worker’s mental health taken care of properly, so that they can, in turn, take care of patients.
Kayla: The only thing I’ll add to that is that we want to see an environment where mental health is something that can be easily talked about, where it’s something that you learn about from your school years. We want to see people understanding those signs to look for to know if they, or their friends, or their family, are struggling. We also want to teach people other strategies to deal with struggling mental health that aren’t just ‘go for a run,’ or ‘watch your favourite movie.’ We want to see this environment where mental health is something that is destigmatised and understood, first and foremost.
Amy: Another thing we need to see is youth consultation. We need to stop living in this world where policies and initiatives that are made to help youth are created by those who aren’t living the youth experiences. Everyone was young at some point, but being a young person in the ‘70s or the ‘80s or the ‘90s is different to being a young person in the 2010s or the 2020s, it’s a completely different world. What we want to see is young people with those really unique experiences having a voice around the table. I entered the mental health system when I was seven, it would have been amazing to have my voice at the table talking about what was right for me, instead of other people asserting what was right for me.
Kayla: We don’t want mental health care policy to be something that stops at a certain point. We don’t want policymakers to say ‘right, we’ve got the formula, no worries, mental health is fixed.’ We want mental health policy to be something that is consistently changing and adapting as the world changes and adapts.
What’s one piece of advice you would give to people who want to get engaged with this space, or with the Mental Health Matters Initiative?
Amy: My one piece of advice I would give to people who want to get into youth activism, whether it’s inside or outside of the mental health space, is that your voice has power. No matter how many times people tell you it doesn’t, your voice has power, and your experiences matter. We cannot get an effective and caring society without everyone’s input, and it’s really important to believe in your voice, because it does have power, it does matter, and those stories are priceless to generate change. If people want to get engaged with us specifically, there are ways to reach us on our website. Currently, our recruitments are open, so that is open to everyone between the ages of fifteen and twenty. Anyone from anywhere around Aotearoa can join that. You can also flick us an email, or send me or Kayla a message on our Instagram account. We are all very passionate, and always willing to talk about mental health.
Kayla: One piece of advice I would give to people wanting to engage in youth activism is, there are a lot of times where you will have to fight your way into that space. It’s okay to not always have the energy to do that. I think it’s definitely something where you need to pick your battles. For me, because I have post-viral chronic fatigue, sometimes I do have to skip out on events that I want to go to, because it would simply be too much. So it’s okay if you can’t deal with a certain event, or if something is a bit much for you right now, you really have to pick your battles. Figure out what point it is that you want to get across, and then fight to get that point across.
You can find Mental Health Matters Initiative on Instagram under @mentalhealthmattersintiative or on their website, https://www.mentalhealthmattersinitiative.com/