History
In 1996 an inquiry into mental health services by Judge Ken Mason recommended the New Zealand Government fund a public education campaign to reduce discrimination associated with mental illness. This was deemed essential to improve the status and wellbeing of people with experience of mental illness.
Now known as the Mason Inquiry into Mental Health Services, New Zealand 1996, the report stated: "We support a public awareness campaign - it is a must. It is fundamentally wrong that a vulnerable group in our society should be continually subjected to the comments and actions of those who possess an outcast mentality... We are optimistic enough to believe that a well-informed New Zealand public will then realise that [people with a mental illness] are people whom we should nurture and value."
As a result, in 1997, the Ministry of Health launched a five-year $12.6 million public health project for both nationwide and community programmes.
Since 2001, the Government has funded the project as a core public health activity.
The Origins of the Like Minds Name, Logo and Tagline
The name ‘Like Minds, Like Mine' plays on the phrase that ‘we are all of like mind'. This means different things to different people. Some ways of understanding it include:
- mental illness can happen to anyone
- look at similarities rather than differences
- we are all similar.
The Like Minds, Like Mine logo uses the mathematical symbol ≥, which stands for greater than or equal to. Used for the programme, it means ‘greater than discrimination, equal to others'.
The Maori tagline: ‘whakaitia te whakawhiu i te tangata' means ‘reduce your potential to discriminate'.
