The Open University

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EMA – Justification on mental health interventions to improve mental health in deprived communities. Introduction This report will highlight some of the important interventions needed when discussing depression amongst deprived communities. Open Minds is a charity with the focus on depression suffered by adults of a working age. Depression affects three in one hundred people; it is a low mood that lasts along time. In some severe cases it can lead to suicide according to [ CITATION htt21 \l 2057 ]. Depression can be associated as a pervasive negative way of thinking, which not only affects behaviour but also emotions, this report will identify what Open Minds and service users can do to alleviate the negative thoughts. Open Minds looks to develop life skills and collaborates closely with service users, who we believe are vital in the development of continued research due to their invaluable lived experience. As cited by [CITATION Wor20 \l 2057 ] people that have gone through trauma, unemployment, bereavement, and poverty are more likely to develop depression, this report will show how invaluable the service user involvement is. Open Minds applies a sociological approach and uses the knowledge from service users to help communities, individuals, and families this includes working closely with schools, giving young people vital life skills to be able to reduce stigma and create clear pathways to prevent mental health problems. 206 Service User Involvement Open Minds adopts a service user led programme, the reasoning for this is, who better to know what works in terms of treatment and support, better than a service user that has been through or still going through some of the mental health issues and through the systems. ‘The invaluable feedback and experiences can be not only help other service users, but it can help professionals with research. Service users are not just activists that campaign for better treatments and benefits they are a broad group of