Health

Riverside Adopts County’s Successful Mental Health Campaign

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You’ve likely seen the commercials with personal stories of people facing mental illness and the friends and family who support them. The local campaign is called It’s Up to Us, and it caught the attention of officials in neighboring Riverside County.

“I liked what I saw in the campaign as the ads empower individuals to seek help and try to normalize mental health issues,” said Bill Brenneman, director of the Mental Health Services Act (MHSA) for Riverside County.

Riverside County mental health officials were so impressed with the campaign that they’ve adopted it almost in its entirety. The goal of It’s Up to Us is to get rid of the stigma associated with mental illness, letting people know it’s OK to talk about it, learn how to recognize the symptoms and how to get help.

An added benefit of the campaign’s expansion to Riverside – both counties will be able to share resources and cut costs. 

“There were a variety of advantages including savings on production costs on already developed media, research/data costs, seeing the campaign already in action, and creating an overarching and consistent approach in the Southern Region,” Brenneman said. “We did tailor many of the spots to reflect Riverside.”

San Diego County will also be saving taxpayer money by using materials generated by Riverside and adapting them for local audiences. The County Health and Human Services Agency will be receiving commercials targeting children and parents in Spanish and English from Riverside.

It’s Up to Us was created for the County’s Health and Human Services Agency by San Diego marketing and public relations firm, Ad Ease. They then developed a version of the award-winning bilingual campaign for Riverside County.  Other counties have expressed interest as well. Both campaigns are funded by MHSA, approved by California voters in 2004.

“It’s wonderful that our community will be benefitting from Riverside as well,” said Karen Ventimiglia, director of MHSA for the County. “We are filling each other’s gaps, creatively addressing a very important issue that changes peoples’ lives, and being financially frugal at the same time.  That’s a win-win situation for everyone.”

To see how the two campaigns compare, check out the County’s Up2SD.org and Up2Riverside.org.