Rizzle Kicks star launches major mental health campaign

The Brighton chart-topper is working with the NHS and YMCA to encourage young people to be more open and understanding about the struggles people face.

#IAMWHOLE’s launch on World Mental Health Day today kick-starts a social media campaign that will see people across the country posting ‘circle on hand’ selfies in support of the anti-stigma message.

Many of these supporters will be wearing branded sweatshirts and T-shirts personally designed by Jordan.

The move comes as new research published by the YMCA reveals more than one in three 11 to 24-year-olds with mental health difficulties across Sussex say they experience stigma.

This can take many damaging forms including social exclusion and verbal abuse.

More than half say this hurtful behaviour originates from friends.

This has an impact on their willingness to ask for help, with 67 per cent of those who felt stigmatised saying they were less likely to access professional support as a result.

Others said stigma negatively affected their school performance and 83 per cent said it made them less likely to talk to others about their mental health.

Jordan is the first chart-topping artist to feature in an NHS campaign and has written a new track ‘Whole’ about tackling mental health issues.

He has experienced mild depression of his own and has also had experience with suicide after a close friend took his life a few years ago.

His fellow Rizzle Kicks star Harley Alexander-Sule is currently getting help for generalised anxiety disorder, which led to the duo’s upcoming tour being postponed.

The campaign is being supported by other high-profile names, including musician Ed Sheeran, James Corden and Dermot O’Leary.

Jordan said: “The campaign message that ‘together we are whole’ is so important.

“My mum is a trained therapist so I’ve seen how important it is for people to get the right support.

“I wrote ‘Whole’ to express how I was feeling at the bottom of a situation.

"When the NHS suggested it could be used to give other people a way of feeling less alone, that felt really good.”

Chief executive of the YMCA Downslink Group Chas Walker said: "YMCA’s research backs up conversations we have had with young people in which they have told us mental health is one of the principle worries affecting their generation today.

"What is alarming from these findings is the widespread stigma young people are now seeing or experiencing from others that is making them less likely to seek professional help.

“That’s why we are encouraging everyone to support #IAMWHOLE to help overcome the stigma we have.”

‘I DON’T KNOW WHAT NORMAL IS – IT SOUNDS BORING’

AS ONE half of Rizzle Kicks, Jordan Stephens is no stranger to the limelight – but fame can have its negative side.

It was when he wrote a song called Whole, as part of another project, that Jordan had a chance to discover a little bit more about himself.

He said: “There is a power to writing, be it through diary, songs, poems, essay, whatever, giving you a way of discovering just how you feel about things.

“I found myself writing about being depressed.

“One of the lines in the song is ‘what’s this circle, because I’m struggling to find the edge’. I realised I was talking about someone else here and it turned out to be my own inner spiral.

“When I was told the song would be good for a campaign I was keen to be involved. Knowing that you can help people is a special feeling.

“I think everyone goes through ups and downs and it is preposterous to think that people can just carry on and just be content with life.

“Yes, I’ve been depressed, I’ve been anxious. Being in the public eye and alone and being a young man alone, there is a lot of expectation stacked upon you.

“The more you go through the easier it is to deal with and the more people that give you advice and help is good.”

The group had to postpone their upcoming tour so bandmate Harley could receive treatment for generalised anxiety disorder.

Jordan said: “The campaign was already in motion before I realised what was going on in Harley’s head.

“His anxiety has been dormant for years and I am good at distracting him. My ADHD works nicely with his anxiety because I’m constantly buzzing and distracting him.

“But I just wasn’t comfortable with him constantly having to suppress feelings that he really needed to express and sort out.

“That is the only way he can truly be happy, when he performs, rather than be a shell of himself.

“I don’t want anyone to see that and I don’t think he would want people to see that in him either.”

Jordan has dealt with his own experience of loss after someone close to him took their own life a few years ago, which is another reason he is determined to help other people get out of a “dark situation”.

He said: “It is hard to understand what is going on in someone’s mind.

“Although I want the campaign it to reach everyone, there is a specific issue here with guys.

“There is a more prominent issue here about what society expects of you and what people think is right and wrong.

“It judges on how you should act, what a boy should wear and whether a boy should cry. I think it’s just archaic principles that have no benefit to anyone.

“I feel quite passionately about that because male suicide rates are unacceptably high. Young men are three times more likely to kill themselves than a young woman girl.

“It is important to break down barriers. I just don’t like this idea about what is normal. I’m weird. Everyone’s weird. There’s no normal.

“I don’t know what normal is and I don’t want to find out because it sounds boring.”

HEALTH CALL TO PUBLIC

The #IAMWHOLE campaign is calling for the public to:

1. Challenge harmful language used to describe mental health difficulties so that young people can ask for help without fear of negative labels

2. Ask for support from friends, parents, teachers, GPs or youth workers

3. Show support by joining the #IAMWHOLE movement on social media and posting “circle on hand” selfies in support of the anti-stigma message

4. Find and get help by visiting www.findgetgive.com – a mental health services directory for young people created by YMCA’s Brighton and Hove Right Here project in partnership with other local groups.

This site allows users to search for support, share stories about their own mental health and give feedback on services they have used for others to read.