Real Insight ‘Service user involvement’ has become a mainstream concept. However, there are still major challenges in building mutual understanding, trust and respect between ‘service users’ as peers, staff, and service providers.... Expand Real Insight’s team is piloting an approach which will help services to get the most from their involvement activities and to adjust their culture and systems for mutual gain. Service users become peers, moving from passive consumers to active partners and shareholders. As the project develops, it will create a critical mass of skilled peers who are able to collaborate with senior management teams to improve how services are designed and ultimately how organisations function - demonstrating economic impact and efficiently reducing the cost of resources. Real Insight’s work could transform the whole landscape of ‘service user involvement’, and demonstrate a true systems change through which people living with severe and multiple disadvantages take a meaningful and effective role in co-designing their own solutions and services. Real Insight has been hosted by the National Survivor User Network (NSUN) since 2016 and is funded by Lankelly Chase. You can contact the Real Insight staff on the NSUN general number or email [email protected] : Nash Nomori - Director Sara Lopez - Project Manager You can also visit their website at www.real-insight.org
North East together (NEt) NEt is the network for people with lived experience of mental health conditions living in the North East of England. Expand The Network provides the opportunity to meet for support, to exchange information and come together to influence what happens in mental health services. Regional Coordinator, Mish Lorraine, together with Chair, Catherine Haigh and Treasurer, Sharon Gibson have been working extremely hard to look at the future sustainability of North East together. Two very successful working groups have been established. The News Group have produced a flyer, the first edition of the NEt Newsletter, a facebook page, twitter account @NorthEtogether and a website is in progress. The Welfare Reform Action Group has created a Mental Health Manifesto, which will be distributed to user and carer groups across the region for sign up. Further work is generated through regular monthly meetings.
Reigniting the Space: for BME user/survivor voice A national forum to facilitate networking, information sharing and collaboration between racialised groups, and to sustain a collective political voice. Expand In 2006, The Afiya Trust, a national charity addressing racial inequalities in health, set up Catch-a-Fiya, a national network of mental health service users and survivors from racialised and marginalised communities. Catch-a-Fiya served as a platform for user/survivors from racialised groups to come together to ‘learn, teach and grow’ by sharing experiences and knowledge. By 2012, both the Afiya Trust and Catch-a-Fiya had ceased functioning due to funding cuts and lack or resources, as had many of the local BME user groups. In fact, as early as 2010 and at the beginning of the economic downturn, the Council for Ethnic Minority Voluntary Organisations (CEMVO) had calculated that 45 per cent of all BME voluntary sector groups had faced funding cuts from local authorities,in addition to 61 per cent who faced cuts in government funding, other grant making trusts and the Big Lottery. Despite these setbacks, people from racialised groups have continued to work within our communities and local areas, often in isolation and without access to sustainable resources. What has been difficult to achieve is a national forum to facilitate networking, information sharing and collaboration between groups, and to sustain a collective political voice. A group of BME user/survivors, including some of the original steering group members of Catch-a-Fiya, have been working in collaboration with NSUN to recreate a national platform. We are happy to announce that the Lankelly Chase Foundation has funded this work – tentatively titled ‘Reigniting the Space’. This project will start with mapping the current work mental health service users and survivors from racialised groups are involved in around the country. Through this process, we aim to: Make available a clear picture of the current work and activities undertaken by BME mental health service users and survivors and their groups in addressing multiple and intersecting disadvantages. Identify specific needs for capacity building and infrastructure for national collaboration and mutual support. Document the work led by BME user/survivors, acknowledging achievements and sharing ways of working. Document theories and practices of user activism and involvement in mental health which truly reflect the diversity of viewpoints and ways of working. The project has just completed the first phase of recruiting steering group members to lead this work. We are seeking representation from all nine regions of England as well as of the diversity of communities falling under the umbrella term ‘BME’. Information about the recruitment can be viewed here. We will also be recruiting user/survivor researchers for the mapping work. So watch this space! Creating a forum for our collective political voice is all the more important now. The focus on race equality is, for all practical purposes, off the policy agenda.Institutional racism in mental health services continues to impact our communities and our health. While welfare cuts and the changes to the benefits system have affected mental health service users across the board, people from racialised groups have been doubly hit by its effects. We hope that this project will reignite the space for our collective action, advocacy and influence. Contact NSUN ([email protected]) or Jayasree Kalathil ([email protected]) for further information about the project and how to get involved.
MAD Alliance NSUN members from eight North West London boroughs who have formed a leadership group to establish a culture of co-production at all levels of commissioning and influence provision of mental health care and support across North West London. MAD stands for 'making a difference'. Expand 'M.A.D Alliance' started out with NSUN members from eight North West London boroughs who formed a leadership group to establish a culture of co-production at all levels of commissioning and influence provision of mental health care and support across North West London. 'Mad', whilst implying a 'tongue in cheek' adoption of a word often used as an insult, has a secondary meaning here: it stands for 'making a difference'. Drawing on their individual and collective experience, 'Mad Alliance' members advise the North West London Mental Health and Wellbeing Transformation Board of Commissioners. The group challenges, informs and drives the redesign of services, improving delivery of the Crisis Concordat standards for care and support. The concordat is a national agreement between services and agencies that sets out how they will work together to make sure people get the help they need when they are having a mental health crisis. 'Mad Alliance' members were recruited by NSUN and got to know each other whilst attending our 2015 Creative Leadership Programme, which consisted of an an introduction day followed by 12 interactive sessions. This page is a collection of resources relating to this programme as well as other materials which 'Mad alliance' members use in their work. The Alliance is now managed by a collaboration of local providers accross North West London. Creative Leadership Programme HandbookHandbook - Creative Leadership Programme Creative Leadership Programme MaterialsDay 1 - Introduction to Leadership - slidesDay 1 - Influencing User Leadership by Janice Lowe - slidesDay 1 - Leadership by Janice Lowe - slidesDay 1 - Authority and Power - notesDay 1 - Influence through stories - notesDay 1 - Servant as Leader - notesDay 2 - Introduction to Leadership by Naomi GoodDay 2 - Introduction to 4Pi IndicatorsDay 2 - The Origins of 4Pi by Alison FaulknerDay 3 - Session facilitator Brian Joof's article 'there needs to be change'Day 4 - Session facilitator's Ian Pringle's websiteDay 4 - The Forum Project's website, introducing Augusto Boal's Forum Theatre, the Theatre of the OppressedDay 4 - Video on how Forum Theatre can blast stigma to change minds and end mental health discriminatationDay 4 - Video showing an example of Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed on the theme of suicideDay 5 - Culture Race and Ethnicity in Commissioning for Mental Health by Dr Colin King - slidesDay 5 - Video on ethnic issuesDay 5 - Dancing to Our Own Tunes ReportDay 5 - Influencing Mental Health Services - a Guide to Values Based Commissioning (VBC)Day 5 - guidance on VBC from the joint commissioning panelDay 5 - MH services for black and minority ethnic communitiesDay 5 - Doll Test Video Day 6 - Session facilitator Dr Jonathan Campion's Public Mental Health Indicators