SNP Conference 2016

14th October 2016

Blog by Rachel Stewart, SAMH Senior Public Affairs Officer

Conference season has rolled around again, and our team will be attending the SNP conference in Glasgow this weekend.

We’re hosting a fringe meeting this year, at lunchtime on Saturday, and we are delighted that the Minister for Mental Health Maureen Watt MSP will be attending.

Our team has been going to party conferences for many years now, and fringe meetings can sometimes be quite structured affairs – a panel of experts delivering several speeches and then a lot of disappointed hands in the air as the event draws to a close; but this isn’t going to be the case at our fringe.

Mandy Rhodes from Holyrood Magazine will be sitting in the interviewer chair in conversation with Maureen and SAMH Chair Chris Creegan.

The Mental Health Strategy and vision for the future is still in development and we hope this Q&A format will help explore some of the issues surrounding mental health, in a more informal and informative setting.

The people who informed our manifesto told us that mental health was not just about health and social care services, but also about their working lives and their educational experiences, so this fringe will give us a chance to tease out these issues.

Unlike Oprah, we probably won’t be putting a stressball under everyone’s seat, but we will be ensuring that mental health is on the SNP’s agenda.

If you’d like to submit a question to Mandy to ask the Minister or Chris, please tweet us @SAMHtweets #AskOnce

Follow @SAMHtweets on the day for live updates.