A behind the scenes of our launch day event and roundtable
Tackling Gambling Stigma – Launch event
At the end of last year, we convened an expert roundtable of academics, clinicians, Parliamentarians and people with lived experience of gambling harm to discuss the forthcoming Gambling White Paper and the need to tackle the stigma attached to gambling harm. Attached to this post is our speech, our letter to Paul Scully MP, the Minister for DCMS, and his response.
Stigma can mean people affected by gambling harm are reluctant to seek the help and support they need. Stigma causes immeasurable levels of harm because it leads to discrimination. These are all symptoms and signs of stigma leading to discrimination and its effect on a population scale: less treatment, fewer protections and less apparent value of those who suffer. A system that perpetuates the stigma because it is built on it. It fails to protect these people because it thinks they are less worthy of their protection. If you want an example of this, look no further than the failure to publish the white paper.
Because of this, we wanted to hold our launch event as a roundtable, as it gave us another opportunity to push for a white paper that puts the people affected by gambling harm at the core. This post is our opportunity to share with the wider community what we said that day, as well as the outcome of the roundtable. It is the first of many steps we take towards pushing for a regulatory system that puts people at the heart of its legislation.
We hope that you will be with us on this journey,
The team at Tackling Gambling Stigma
Our speech: Tackling Gambling Stigma – launch event speech
Our letter to the Minister for DCMS: TGS Letter to Paul Scully MP
The Minister’s response: DCMS response