Recovery Champions: A Personal View On Making Recovery Happen.
See my latest piece in Your Voice Extra: http://yourvoiceextra.tumblr.com/post/53272973517/recovery-champions-a-personal-view-on-making-recovery
Tuesday, 18 June 2013
Tuesday, 12 March 2013
PRIMROSE Award
The PRIMROSE project has won an award for outstanding service user involvement from the Mental Health Research Network (MHRN).
According to a judge of the award: "[the study] covers a major and enormously worthwhile concern, which is often overlooked".
The PRIMROSE project has also been chosen by the MHRN, together with a few other studies, as a good example of service user involvement. A case study will appear in the next few months.
According to a judge of the award: "[the study] covers a major and enormously worthwhile concern, which is often overlooked".
The PRIMROSE project has also been chosen by the MHRN, together with a few other studies, as a good example of service user involvement. A case study will appear in the next few months.
Friday, 11 January 2013
Next Meetings
The next meeting of the LEAP Intervention Development Group (IDG) of 8 people is scheduled for early April. This is for the 8 people who have attended previous IDG meetings.
There will also be an annual meeting for the main LEAP of 27 people in June/ July. This annual meeting is for everyone.
The team will be in touch about dates and to see if you are available.
There will also be an annual meeting for the main LEAP of 27 people in June/ July. This annual meeting is for everyone.
The team will be in touch about dates and to see if you are available.
Your Experience of the LEAP
We are asking LEAP members to share their experiences of the LEAP and what it meant to them to take part. This will go on the PRIMROSE website (under development).
Please write only 60- 100 words maximum and email to: ben.gray@rethink.org
You can be anonymous or choose another name, if you do not want your name to appear on the PRIMROSE website.
Many thanks!
Please write only 60- 100 words maximum and email to: ben.gray@rethink.org
You can be anonymous or choose another name, if you do not want your name to appear on the PRIMROSE website.
Many thanks!
Friday, 9 November 2012
1 in 4: time to change and end stigma and discrimination.
Speak Up! This article appeared in the August issue of Mental Health Nursing and is reproduced here by the author. Benjamin Gray, Service User Expert, Rethink Mental Illness.
1 in 4: time to change and end stigma and discrimination.
Dr Benjamin Gray, a service user with lived experience of schizophrenia, explains his work with a charity to campaign against stigma and discrimination.
According to official statistics, one in four people will experience some kind of mental illness. Even today, mental illness carries with it strong feelings of stigma, exclusion, fear and discrimination. These affect all aspects of life, from those as simple as making friends and socialising to being able to work and find employment. Many people who experience mental illness spend their lives on benefits at the margins of society. Stigma about mental illness is still a strong, pervasive and undesirable force.
According to a carer of someone with mental health problems: ‘I think within mental health one of the biggest challenges is stigma. If you’re a carer for a disabled child, if you’re a carer for somebody with a learning disability, if you’re a carer for someone with cancer, the instinctive reaction is “Oh, you must be an angel, you’re having to deal with that, poor thing” you know, it’s a tragedy. With mental illness there’s still the stigma of “Hold on, is it catching?”
In the words of another person with schizophrenia: ‘I go out in the community and they arrange housing for me, but it never lasts long. They know I’m different so they pick on me and bully me. They smashed my windows and call me names, so it never lasts long and I end up back in hospital’.
Images of mental illness in the media and among the public are very negative too, generating feelings of fear, disbelief, guilt and chaos. These can be controlled through better information about mental illness, optimism, promoting routine living, better social and employment expectations and hope.
An important question arises: If 25% of people suffer from some kind of mental illness, is the experience of mental illness so aberrant, abnormal and wrong? There is a strong case to be made that mental illness is just like any other kind of illness, in need of sympathy, care and support. It is a common human experience that should not be stigmatised.
To begin to end discrimination and stigma, Rethink Mental Illness has recently run a very well received advertising campaign, Time to Change, both on television and by posters showing a brain with a bandage saying: ‘If only’, indicating the promise of healing mental illness and the hope of recovery.
The research team has also organised a number of lived experience advisory panels (LEAPs). These bring people with lived experience of mental illness and their carers together so that they can shape the direction of individual research projects. The LEAPs shape the important work that Rethink Mental Illness does to end stigma, exclusion and discrimination against people with mental illness.
1 in 4 means that mental illness should not be stigmatised. It is a common human experience that many people encounter in their lives.
Ending stigma and discrimination will no doubt be a difficult and unsettling journey for many, but if some health professionals and people in society continue to silence and stigmatise mental illness, the consequences may be far more serious.
Denial of stigma and exclusion also denies the possibility of opening up new approaches and avenues of debate that may in turn influence more democratic alternatives in mental health. Psychiatry and mental health, rather than doing things to or for people with mental illness, must begin to work with them to end stigma and discrimination.
Write for MHN!
(Speak up! is an informal opportunity to for you to write for Mental Health Nursing about anything relevant to you and your fellow members. It can be subjective, serious or light-hearted, and you won’t be expected to provide references. If you have something to say, then just contact the editor to discuss style and deadlines. Email: mhneditor@gmail.com).
Peer Support in Hospital—A Shared Journey.
Peer Support in Hospital—A Shared Journey.
This article has just appeared in Schizophrenia Bulletin and is reproduced here by the author.
Benjamin Gray, Service User Expert, Rethink Mental Illness.
I have just spent a month in a psychiatric ward. In fact, as I write this, I’m still here. It’s my third relapse in 10 years, and the first time it lasted for nearly a year. Being in hospital is a painful experience, but it’s also a personal journey, and for me it was forming friendships on the ward that pulled me through (and continues to do so).
I’m diagnosed with schizophrenia. When I hear voices they are very negative and frightening, often saying things in a demonic hiss like “I’m an abuser” or “I’m coming. You wait until you see what I’m going to do to you!”.
Being on the ward is often isolating and frightening, with people shouting at their voices and sometimes being restrained by staff. It would be better in my opinion if there was more therapeutic contact between us and the staff and more time for one-to-one supportive conversations to aid recovery.
The good thing about being in hospital is that I started taking my medication again, which I had stopped for some days. But the other reason I started to feel better was as a result of friendships on the ward.
Befriending other people, getting their support, praying for others, and engaging in group activities, all aided in my recovery. By taking part in group activities like creative writing or music therapy, I became closer to people (not as a diagnosis of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or depression but as human beings with complex problems, emotions, and difficult past histories). We talked about our personal experiences, emotions, and difficulties and supported each other’s gradual progress and journey toward recovery. Importantly, I realized we were all in it together—I wasn’t alone.
I especially connected with a 70-year-old woman, Becky, who needed the care of nurses, me, and other people on the ward to make her drinks and just to hold her hand to comfort her distress. She has schizophrenia and dementia and is unable to look after herself. Recently, I took her with me to the chaplaincy group, where she said a little about herself and her 2 sons, which was the first group she had attended in some months. This helped us both a lot, and we have become good friends.
Friendships—showing a little bit of love and caring for each other—make the time on the ward easier and more rewarding. It can be tough and not everyone likes going into hospital, but I think the important thing to remember is that we can all support each other. It may seem like a little thing, but having a good relationship with another human being makes all the difference.
(Schizophrenia Bulletin Advance Access published October 30, 2012).
This article has just appeared in Schizophrenia Bulletin and is reproduced here by the author.
Benjamin Gray, Service User Expert, Rethink Mental Illness.
I have just spent a month in a psychiatric ward. In fact, as I write this, I’m still here. It’s my third relapse in 10 years, and the first time it lasted for nearly a year. Being in hospital is a painful experience, but it’s also a personal journey, and for me it was forming friendships on the ward that pulled me through (and continues to do so).
I’m diagnosed with schizophrenia. When I hear voices they are very negative and frightening, often saying things in a demonic hiss like “I’m an abuser” or “I’m coming. You wait until you see what I’m going to do to you!”.
Being on the ward is often isolating and frightening, with people shouting at their voices and sometimes being restrained by staff. It would be better in my opinion if there was more therapeutic contact between us and the staff and more time for one-to-one supportive conversations to aid recovery.
The good thing about being in hospital is that I started taking my medication again, which I had stopped for some days. But the other reason I started to feel better was as a result of friendships on the ward.
Befriending other people, getting their support, praying for others, and engaging in group activities, all aided in my recovery. By taking part in group activities like creative writing or music therapy, I became closer to people (not as a diagnosis of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or depression but as human beings with complex problems, emotions, and difficult past histories). We talked about our personal experiences, emotions, and difficulties and supported each other’s gradual progress and journey toward recovery. Importantly, I realized we were all in it together—I wasn’t alone.
I especially connected with a 70-year-old woman, Becky, who needed the care of nurses, me, and other people on the ward to make her drinks and just to hold her hand to comfort her distress. She has schizophrenia and dementia and is unable to look after herself. Recently, I took her with me to the chaplaincy group, where she said a little about herself and her 2 sons, which was the first group she had attended in some months. This helped us both a lot, and we have become good friends.
Friendships—showing a little bit of love and caring for each other—make the time on the ward easier and more rewarding. It can be tough and not everyone likes going into hospital, but I think the important thing to remember is that we can all support each other. It may seem like a little thing, but having a good relationship with another human being makes all the difference.
(Schizophrenia Bulletin Advance Access published October 30, 2012).
Monday, 15 October 2012
Latest News (October 2012)
The LEAP is acting as a critical friend to the PRIMROSE project.
The main LEAP is comprised of 27 service users and carers. It has offered feedback on topic guides for focus groups and also questions for the systematic review (protocol).
The LEAP Intervention Development Group (IDG) is a sub- group of the main LEAP and last met at the end of September. The IDG is comprised of 8 service users and carers. It has recently offered feedback on:
The main LEAP is comprised of 27 service users and carers. It has offered feedback on topic guides for focus groups and also questions for the systematic review (protocol).
The LEAP Intervention Development Group (IDG) is a sub- group of the main LEAP and last met at the end of September. The IDG is comprised of 8 service users and carers. It has recently offered feedback on:
- Enablers and barriers to the intervention (a service in primary care run by GPs and nurses for people with mental health problems at risk of cardiovascular disease, CVD).
- Insights drawn from lived experience of mental illness on what the intervention/ service should look like and do in order to help people with mental health problems.
- The IDG made comments on the ways in which the intervention/ service should be tailored for people, so as to be targeted to their health needs and making it more acceptable to service users. This will make the service more acceptable and personalised, perhaps increasing uptake so people attend appointments, and ensure that the service is relevant to people's individual needs.
- The IDG has also offered feedback on preliminary themes from focus groups with service users and carers.
- The LEAP IDG has drafted some recommendations to be considered by the PRIMROSE project. For example, there was a positive response in the group to the fact that the intervention appears to be proposing not just medication (statins) but also small one step at a time goals for people to reduce risk of cardiovascular disease. This makes behaviour change (diet, exercise, smoking) more realistic, achievable and person- centred by people’s choice. In addition, the IDG proposed that service users and carers should be involved in some aspects of the training of nurses.
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