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Hello! I'm a nursing student, trying to find community interventions to decrease mental health stigma in Brooklyn, NY. I cannot seem to find a related source on your website. Let me know if I missed something.
Answer:

Hi Maciej,
 
A warm welcome to the Community Tool Box and Ask an Advisor, we're very glad you brought your question to our attention.  Let me say, first and foremost, as someone who has worked in the mental health field (mostly in research and evaluation) I really appreciate your wanting to reduce stigma, it is such a pernicious problem with deleteriousness consequences for those with mental challenges; kudos to you.  Second, don't worry about feeling like you missed something, the CTB has a lot, and I mean a lot of great information and resources so it can feel a little overwhelming, it's very easy to not find what you're looking for at the first go; trust me Maciej even I get a bit overwhelmed from time to time! 
 
Well, let's get down to business,  To be honest, after rooting around a bit I didn't come up with an intervention to reduce mental health stigma (although I'm not sure what your target population for the intervention) specifically for the good people of Brooklyn, but, we do have a Database of Best Practices found here at this link: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/databases-best-practices which is divided into two main sections: Comprehensive Resources (a database of databases) and Categorical Web-Based Resources for Best Practices by Issue. Okay, that's two places to look.  I then put "reducing stigma" into our CTB search function and came up with two resources that are related to stigma more generally, but might give you some ideas even if they're not quite on point.  I tried a number of other combinations "mental health", "reducing mental health stigma," and the like and didn't come up with much more than I found by putting in "reducing stigma."  Maybe I'm not using the right terms so if you want to give it another go with more appropriate terms you might come up with something I'm not coming up with in my own searches.  
 
Example 6. Talaku - Fighting TB in the Maasai Community (there is mention of stigma, and is an interesting read, but no intervention: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/node/5597.
Example 7. Embrace Mental Health Organization in Beirut, Lebanon: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/developing-strategic-and-action-plans/examples/exa...
Okay,so the databases and these two examples are what we have related to what you're looking for. That said, I decided to look outside the CTB to give you some other resources and came up with a number of interesting links that can serve as another point of departure in your search for stigma reduction interventions: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK384914/, Ending discrimination against people with mental and substance use disorders: The evidence for stigma change; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5344948/, Interventions to reduce discrimination and stigma: The state of the art.  The RAND Corporation also has some great resources that can be found at this link:https://www.rand.org/pubs/periodicals/health-quarterly/issues/v2/n4/03.html.  I also found this blog from NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness (https://www.nami.org/home) which is another great, kind of go-to resource for those working in the mental health field: https://www.mcmasteroptimalaging.org/full-article/es/programs-targeting-...  
 
So, with that Maciej I think I've reached the limit of my advice.  I do think, however, that the links I provided (especially NAMI) will help you find the exact intervention (evidence-based, hopefully) you're looking for for the target population you're working with.  You know, if you don't find what you're looking for you can always design your own intervention, and of course the CTB has plenty of resources for just that purpose, beginning with Toolkit 7 - Developing an Intervention: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/developing-intervention.  I know this is probably not the ideal as I think you're really looking for a program that has been proven to be effective, but it's an idea.  With that Maciej, thank you for your question and for visiting us here at the Community Tool Box.  I sincerely hope you find what you're looking for and that we've sent you in the right direction.  Best of success to you in all your endeavors!
 
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Question Date: Tue, 07/07/2020