Asking people to describe a difficult experience is not the same as giving them influence over a decision. That distinction was central to the World Health Organization’s 2026 mental-health campaign, and it is useful well beyond a single awareness day.
What WHO asked organisations to change
For World Mental Health Day on October 10, WHO called for people with lived experience of mental-health conditions to help shape policies, services and decisions affecting them. The campaign emphasised participation in design and evaluation, rather than collecting personal stories without sharing decision-making power.
WHO also stressed that no individual can speak for everyone with lived experience. Its campaign linked this participation to community-based, person-centred care and identified a new practical guide on moving away from long-stay psychiatric institutions. These are health-system priorities; the campaign is not a new workplace regulation or a substitute for professional care.
Make the feedback process concrete
For an employer or community organisation reviewing its own support arrangements, a useful starting point is to identify the decision that feedback can actually change. “Tell us how you feel” is a vague request. “Which part of the process for requesting support is difficult to understand?” gives participants a clearer purpose without asking them to disclose a diagnosis.
Before inviting comments, explain who will read them, what will be recorded and how the organisation intends to report its response. Avoid describing a process as anonymous if a small team, a distinctive incident or an identifiable document could reveal the contributor. A confidential conversation and an anonymous survey are different arrangements.
Participation should not become a public storytelling requirement. A person may be willing to comment on scheduling, access or communication while declining to describe medical history. An organisation can learn from that operational feedback without making private experiences the price of admission.
Report the decision, not just the consultation
After collecting feedback, publish a brief account of what will change, what will not and why. Use aggregated themes rather than identifiable accounts. Assign an owner and a review date to agreed changes. Otherwise a listening exercise can produce a report while leaving the process that caused frustration untouched.
A modest change with a named owner can be more credible than an expansive promise without a delivery mechanism. For example, rewriting an unclear support-request page and checking whether users can find the right contact is a specific, testable improvement. It does not justify claims that an organisation has solved mental-health problems or improved clinical outcomes.
Keep roles and evidence clear
Managers and service designers can improve communication and access without presenting themselves as clinicians. Questions about treatment belong with qualified professionals. Questions about an organisation’s legal obligations require advice appropriate to its jurisdiction and circumstances. Neither should be inferred from an awareness campaign.
The editorial lesson from this year’s campaign is straightforward: define the influence participants will have, protect their choice about disclosure and show what happened to their input. Respectful participation is a continuing process, not a quotation collected for a promotional post.
Featured image: workplace meeting, Yan Krukau / Pexels, photo 7693683. Illustrative stock photograph; the people pictured are not identified as patients or campaign participants. Source reporting is attributed to WHO; the organisational examples are AMS Editorial analysis, not clinical guidance.
