The Stand Up Kid Shows that Mental Illness is Not a Joke

Time to Change - Stand Up Kid

This week Time to Change has launched ‘The Stand Up Kid’, a short film aimed at stamping out the stigma of mental illness faced by young people in the West Midlands of England.

In the clip, a teen named Michael returns to sarcastic comments and barbs from the teacher and classmates, after being away for two weeks. As class begins, he literally stands up on his chair and starts off a routine with “How many teachers does it take to change a lightbulb?” The jokes turn much darker as Michael begins to reveal his battle with depression.

New research posted on the Time to Change website states:

Nearly one in ten young people in the West Midlands think that classmates with a mental health problem should not be at their school. The same proportion of respondents in the survey also feel that they would stop being friends with a peer who had a mental health problem.

Time to Change is a campaign run by the leading mental health charities Mind and Rethink Mental Illness.

The ad was created by Dare London, and directed by Tony Barry for Sonny.

UK

Comments

  1. Brilliant!  The best advert I`ve seen yet.  Very well done, and very thought-provoking.  I liked it a lot.  Thanks everyone for this.

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