A project aimed at increasing understanding of boys and young men’s mental health in Scotland has produced a comic to help normalise conversations about the issue and reduce stigma.  

Men Minds has focused on young men owing to the poorer outcomes they experience in mental health indicators such as suicide and substance misuse. 

The project has been guided by a Young People’s Forum of around 10 young men aged 16-24.  The forum helped to shape and undertake the research, including conducting interviews, focus groups and surveys with 60 of their peers across Scotland, in art galleries, offices, prisons, parks and online.   

Marginalised groups

Using peer research, Men Minds has engaged with often marginalised young men, including refugees and asylum seekers, members of the LGBTQ+ community and young men who have been in conflict with the law.   

Those who took part in the project had diverse backgrounds but shared some common experiences. Many did not believe in traditional notions of masculinity and challenged the assumption that men do not want to talk about mental health.  

However, these long-held social norms about what it means to be a man, and unsympathetic societal attitudes towards young men, still permeated their everyday environments in families, peers, schools and communities, often leading to intense shame and stigma. As a result, young men felt alone and isolated in their mental health. 

Real-life experiences

The stories in the new comic are based on real-life experiences that have been shared during the research, although the characters are fictitious.  

One of the participants in the project said:

I feel like I'm really belonging to something important. I feel like some of the guys had similar experiences to me, I feel like I'm not alone in this. 

The comic is free to download, with hard copies made available to key organisations and individuals working with boys and young men. By sharing these stories, Men Minds hopes to reassure young men that they are not alone. 

Men Minds has been led by Dr Nina Vaswani of the Strathclyde-based CYCJ (Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice), alongside colleagues from Strathclyde, the Mental Health Foundation and Monash University in Melbourne.  

Dr Vaswani said: “Our Young People’s Forum have been an absolute credit to this project, as have all of the young men who took part.  

We hope that this comic inspires other young men and helps to open up conversations between young men, their families, peers and others about mental health. 

Men Minds will be sharing wider research findings at the Scottish Parliament, in events with practitioners and support organisations, in prisons and in public engagement events. 

The comic has been produced in conjunction with artists Ell Balson, Megan Sinclair, and UniVerse Comics at the University of Dundee. 

Men Minds has been funded by UKRI (UK Research and Innovation) through the Medical Research Council, Economic and Social Research Council and Arts and Humanities Research Council.