Claudia Beamish MSP

Children’s Hospice Week kicks off today in a fundraising effort to make a real difference to children with life-shortening conditions and their families.

Across Scotland hundreds of families are living with the knowledge that their child’s life will be short.  Caring for a seriously ill child places extreme demands on a family both physically and emotionally.

The Children’s Hospice Association Scotland (CHAS) is a charity which exists to provide support to young people and their families.

CHAS offer a range of support both in the family home and at dedicated hospices.  Services include planned breaks to give families respite support while their child receives care,  emergency care for young people and palliative care.  The service also offers emotional support and bereavement councilling.

In order to provide this service, CHAS need to raise over £7 million every year and relies on the generosity of supporters.  That is why the fundraising efforts during Children’s Hospice Week are so important.

The theme of this year’s campaign, organised by Together for Short Lives, is superheroes and is calling on people to donate and be a hero for children’s hospices across the country.

Among the fundraising ideas suggested by the campaign are superhero film nights, quizzes and fancy dress parties.  To find out more about the campaign click here.

Last month I welcomed the launch of a UK-wide consultation on plain packaging for tobacco products in a bid to reduce smoking.

Plain packs are not simply plain; the term refers to removing branding, corporate logos and fancy packaging. This deprives tobacco companies of their last, very powerful marketing tool to promote their products.

I think that the move to plain packaging would be a positive step following on from the ground-breaking ban of smoking in public spaces introduced in 2006.

Smoking remains the biggest single cause of unnecessary deaths in Scotland, thus more needs to be done. Alongside the consultation, a review from Stirling University has concluded that ‘plain packaging would reduce the attractiveness and appeal of the products’.

The introduction of plain packaging has the potential to discourage new, especially younger people, from taking up smoking. In a world-first, the Australian Parliament passed legislation on the plain packaging of tobacco products on 21 November 2011. The legislation is expected to come into force in December this year.

A new YouGov opinion poll, published this week, suggests strong public support in Scotland for plain packaging. The Poll was based on a survey of 1055 non-smokers, ex-smokers and smokers. 64% support plain packaging, 11% oppose, 21% no opinion and 3% don’t know.

ASH Scotland, together with SCOT Coalition are campaigning to ensure the strongest possible support from Scotland in support of plain packaging consultation.

While over 32,000 people across the UK have already shown their support for plain packaging, there is still a chance to do so via http://www.plainpacksprotect.co.uk/

Faith groups from across Lanarkshire this week became the first in the country to unite together and publicly pledge their commitment to work with ‘see me’, Scotland’s national campaign to tackle the stigma and discrimination of mental ill-health.

The eleven groups involved, representing a broad range of beliefs, came together to agree to work with the campaign to promote positive mental health messages in their local communities.

For many people, faith groups play a central role at the heart of our communities.  These groups are therefore well placed to encourage open discussion of mental health issues to educate and empower people.

Over a quarter of people will experience a mental health problem at some point in their lives yet a significant number do not wish to talk about their situation for fear of stigma and discrimination.

Studies have shown that people in rural areas are more likely to develop mental health problems and we need to get to a situation where people can talk openly about these issues.

In our day to day lives we all have people we rely on, and who rely upon us for support.  Whether it is friends, family, colleagues or members of a congregation, knowing that you have someone who you can talk to about your problems is a big part of protecting against or recovering from mental ill-health.

There is also a need for us all to recognise that there may be a time when professional help should be sought and any perceived stigma attached to this should not drive us to shy away for this route at an early stage when any mental health challenges faced might be more easily resolved.

This week marks national MS Week 2012 – a week of action to raise awareness about Multiple Sclerosis.

There are somewhere in the region of 10,500 people living with MS in Scotland and this year’s MS Week is encouraging people who can to get active and fight back.

National charity, the MS Society Scotland, have commissioned research to highlight the many challenges people with MS face and to gauge public perceptions of MS.

The research showed that a quarter (25%) of Scots think disabled people need to accept they cannot have the same opportunities in life and more than a quarter of Scots (27%) believe disabled people often exaggerate the extent of their physical limitations.

It is likely that such shocking statements are largely due to the lack of public understanding about disability, and MS in particular. The research shows that over three quarters (78%) of Scots admit they don’t feel they know enough about MS. This is despite Scotland having among the highest prevalence of the condition in the world.

However, the charity is stressing that every day, people are fighting back against the condition and living active lives.

The MS Society has published a report called Fighting Back: Ordinary people battling the everyday effects of MS, which highlights the impact MS has on people’s emotions and relationships, social life and work life.

MS is a neurological condition affecting the central nervous system.  In MS, the immune system mistakes a substance which usually protects nerve fibres in the central nervous system as a foreign body and attacks it.    This can lead to a range of physical and cognitive symptoms.  While there is no cure for MS there are a number of ways that the condition can be managed.

If you would be interested in learning more about MS, the following websites may be of interest:

• Multiple Sclerosis Society
• Multiple Sclerosis Trust
• NHS info page