Wendy Halliday brings over 30 years of experience in public health to the role.

Scotland’s programme to tackle mental health stigma and discrimination has appointed Wendy Halliday as its new director.

Halliday has been with See Me since 2017, and recently shaped the future of the programme in her role as interim director through the It Starts With You event.

Before taking on the interim role, Halliday was See Me’s assistant director of programmes, leading the organisation’s response to human rights and overseeing its health and social care, workplace, education, social movement and young people’s teams.

In this post, Halliday says she experienced the power that lived experience brings in challenging assumptions, prejudice and behaviours around mental health.

Halliday, who has over 30 years of experience working in public health, previously worked at Health Scotland where much of her work focused on mental health and health improvement. There she influenced change within different organisations, settings, and services, to improve wellbeing, reduce discrimination and inequality, to improve people’s health.

Following the announcement of her new role, Halliday said: “I feel privileged to have been appointed to lead See Me. It is a fantastic programme with committed staff, volunteers and partners who are all incredibly passionate about making a difference. See Me has the potential to make an even greater change across Scotland by working alongside others, by being led by people’s real experiences of stigma and discrimination and by creating a larger more influential social movement.

“I want to work with others to change attitudes, behaviours and cultures across the system and improve the lives of people with mental health problems. In this role I can apply all that I’ve learned so far, develop my skills and lead the programme to new exciting opportunities and challenges.

“We are living in unprecedented circumstances where both the short and longer term impact on people’s mental health is unknown. People across all walks of life are being challenged to live, work and connect in different ways. The need for the programme has never been greater: to challenge the stigma that will get in the way of people seeking and getting help, to empower people to reach out when they or a friend, colleague or family members are struggling and work to reduce the impact of inequalities people experience as a result of poor mental health.”