Course Outline
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This 6 week online comedy course is aimed at people with experience of mental health problems.
The course is delivered via video conferencing making it easy to access, cheap and easy. It's delivered with an expert tutor & professional comic in order to help participants 'find their funny'.
Each week has its own aims & objectives in order to build upon skills learnt in previous weeks to empower participants and encourage them to improve together as the group without fear of judgement or ridicule.
By looking at specific topics each week it helps participants to understand their recovery using a step-by-step process. This makes the process much more manageable and hopefully a lot more fun. By providing bitesized lessons in order it aims to avoid overwhelming contributors and gives them insight into what to focus on in order to help engage in recovery.
About The Course
This course engages hard-to-reach groups such as men, BAME communities & mature patients who can be reluctant to engage in mental health support. It aims to use humour as a way of motivating, learning and enjoying good mental health.
Using peer support it helps nurture personal and professional growth. This empowers them while also helping create friendships thatlasts long after the course is finished.
This course frames "recovery" as giving something back, rather than taking anything away. It looks at positively framing the discourse around mental health, rather than focussing on shocking statistics and dramatic case studies. In that sense, this is a person-based approach that understands individuality and celebrates it.
It is aimed at anyone above the age of 14 who has an interest in having a laugh. The course seeks to engage people who might typically be reluctant to talk about their mental health and uses humour to normalise the conversation.
How Comedy Helps
Confidence
85% of people suffer from low self esteem (Dr Joe Rubino, 2016). Stand up is a great way of building your confidence in a way that develops personal & professional skills that last long after the course has finished.
Communication
40% of men say they won't talk about their mental health (Priory Group Survey, 2018). Stand-up gives unique methods of talking about taboo subjects in a way that applies to everyday situations.
Connection
1 in 20 adults in England feel lonely “often/always” (ONS, 2018). Using peer support this course encourages participants to work together, build strong relationships & provides a common interest.
Positivity
1 in 4 people has mental illness (APMS, 2007) but 4 in 4 people have mental health. This course looks at building, maintaining and sustaining good mental health, rather than focussing on mental illness.
Resilience
Mental ill health in England alone is estimated to cost £105 billion per year (Mental Health Taskforce, 2017). This course cultivates problem solving skills, self belief and courage in a fun way.
Cost
12% of the NHS total budget is spent on mental health (Kings Fund, 2008). This course is low cost, but high impact; using video conferencing it is minimal expense for maximum exposure.
About The Tutor
This course has been written by Dave Chawner an award-winning stand up comedian, number 1 best selling author & presenter.
Dave had anorexia for nearly 10 years before seeking treatment. He found it difficult to explain what was going on. Being a professional comic he used the tools at his disposal - humour - to help him understand, accept and explain his eating disorder.
Since then he has gone onto write a book, give a TED Talk and do numerous sold out runs at The Edinburgh Fringe. Dave is a media speaker for Beat (The UK's Eating Disorder Charity), a patron of First Steps ED and a recommended trainer for The Hub Of Hope.
He presented a series of BBC’s Tomorrow’s World on body dysmorphia and has appeared on BBC Breakfast, Loose Women, Lorraine, Jeremy Vine On 5 and Sky all talking about how humour can be used to make sense of the tricky topic of mental health.
Dave has also written for a number of publications The Guardian, The Telegraph, Metro, Cosmopolitan, GQ & Reader's Digest and has worked alongside some of the biggest names in comedy including Russell Howard, Sara Pascoe, Julian Clary, Dylan Moran, Omid Djalili & Sean Walsh.
He now wants to pay that forward by teaching other people to sensitively use humour to inform, educate & entertain.