How can you benefit from White Swan Foundation?

This portal is a knowledge repository that hopes to help you gain knowledge on one or more aspects of mental health and wellbeing. This can help you make informed decisions for your mental health. We hope that the information shared here helps you know what your next course of action should be.

Who is our audience?

If you are a person with a mental health issue, or a caregiver to someone who has a mental health issue, you will benefit by acquiring knowledge on the illness itself, and also the associated social issues and possible solutions. Our portal aims to answer the questions you may have.

If you don’t belong to either of these categories, we invite you to go through the content on the portal to gain a better understanding of mental health. Without the right knowledge on mental health, we may become the carriers and propagators of the numerous misbeliefs. We unwittingly become the reason for the prevalence of social challenges such as stigma, exclusion and even violence against those who suffer from mental health problems. If we, the general public, acquire the right knowledge, we will be able to gain a more informed perspective and appreciate the struggles of those with lived experiences. With social acceptance, we can provide them with a much-needed boost in self-confidence and support so they can not only manage their illness, but also seek help without hesitation.

The White Swan Foundation portal also offers information on mental wellbeing, which must be a priority healthcare area for all of us. By acquiring knowledge on mental wellbeing and utilizing the knowledge to our benefit, we can hope to improve the quality of our life and those around us.

Structure of the portals

The White Swan Foundation portals—in six different languages— are broadly divided into sections that will help find information based on your needs. Mental Health Matters and its subsections seek to give you a broad understanding of mental health, from wellbeing to illness. If you are new to the world of mental health, we strongly urge you to spend some time on our Understanding Mental Health section, where you’ll find answers to the most basic and frequently asked questions on mental health.

In the Mental Illness section, you can find accessible, verified and easy-to-read information on diagnosable mental health issues. Here we chart everything from the symptoms to treatment methods for individual illnesses.

White Swan Foundation recognises that caregivers are often sidelined in the larger conversation around mental health. The caregiving section not only includes information on how to care for someone with a mental health issue, but also helps caregivers care for themselves.

For many of us, our social lives revolve around our workplaces. In this modern day community, let’s learn to identify and extend support to those with mental health issues at multiple levels: peer-to-peer level, managers, structural and leadership. In the Workplace Mental Health section you’ll find information to help yourself and your colleagues.

If you have queries about your rights with reference to your mental health, or how mental health exists in the Indian legal system, this section will be of help.

You can also find information based on your life stage or community in our sections titled gender, motherhood, elderly, and so on.

Each topic or disorder is addressed using various forms of content. You will find articles, interviews, real-life case studies and, in some instances, videos as well.

What can you do here?

Find knowledge

To begin with, this portal is a unique place for you to browse and seek knowledge on mental health.

The search function of the portal is one of its strongest features. If you know exactly what you are looking for, please enter your keywords in the search box on any page of the portal and browse through the search results that are provided to you.

Stay in touch

When we intend to acquire knowledge, it is never about one article, a book or an educational video. Instead, it is a sustained effort in which we look for information that nudges us towards the right direction of action. This is possible only by being constantly in touch with the knowledge repository to find something new every time you visit it. Make this portal a regular part of your knowledge-seeking exercise to keep yourself ahead of the challenges.

Share your story

We all connect best to a real-life experience well told. It is our endeavor to bring you more stories of hope, struggles and successes. We encourage you to share your stories with us so that many more people get inspired by your actions, decisions and success.

For all communication please write to connect@whiteswanfoundation.org