Welcome fellow carers. I have started a new collaboration video series. As a carer activist myself I know many carers who go that extra mile to promote carer awareness. I have started to help raise the profile of such carers by doing interviews off my YouTube channel.
Veronica Kamerling
The first carer to be interviewed is Veronica Kamerling who specialises in eating disorder awareness. She has been actively working to promote Triangle of Care which is a set of standards by national carer charity Carers Trust.
Veronica describes her caring role, what drives her to engage with carers, patients and professionals. She also gives advice to carers watching the interview.
CONNECT REFLECT VALIDATE – 3 key takeaways to support someone in suicidal crisis
Jo Lambert
My name is Jo Lambert and I am one of six volunteers who made Hold the Hope, a suicide prevention film which explores how to support someone in suicidal crisis though a lived experience lens.
Over the last year, we have been working with film production company Creative Colony to bring our ideas and vision for Hold the Hope to life.
The film is split into two parts, with the first part told through two spoken word poems Today’s the Day and Hold the Hope (written by me and performed by award winning George the Poet).
It depicts the journey of someone who is in mental health crisis and the thoughts, feelings and emotions they experience. The second part of the film features behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with me and my lived experience colleagues.
Hold the Hope was funded by NHS South West London’s Suicide Prevention Programme (part of the NHS South West London Integrated Care Board).
The film will form part of a new life-saving training course that will be co-delivered by me and other volunteers alongside NHS staff for schools and the British Transport Police in South West London.
At the start of the project, I wrote a carer narrative, a distillation of my lived experience supporting a loved one in suicidal crisis. I condensed it into three key takeaway points – CONNECT REFLECT and VALIDATE in the hope that this might be easy to remember in a crisis situation. These three words and their significance are themes which run through both of the poems in the first film’s voiceover and in the second film, my colleagues and I share our lived experience examples of how to connect, reflect and validate someone in crisis and what holding the hope for them means. The film’s name derives from the name of the second poem.
As a mental health carer, I joined this project because I wanted to share what I wish I had known at the start of our family’s crisis. I am delighted that there are plans not just to deliver Hold the Hope into the police and secondary schools, but that there are already discussions about sharing it more widely across communities – with mental health carers, parents, universities etc.
Hold the Hope has been produced from lived experience, and my belief is that it is versatile and eminently portable because of that. For me the beauty of Hold the Hope is that it can be shared anywhere – it is just as applicable in a corporate setting so that staff can learn how to support family members and colleagues as it is for clinicians in a hospital who can deepen their understanding of their patients’ experience.
For me, this is the most important part of the poem. Once you start to understand the details of the back story to someone’s suicidal crisis, what is remarkable is not that the person had thoughts of ending their life but that they coped with as much as they did, as well as they did and for so long. The act of connecting, reflecting back and validating someone’s experience and holding the hope for them in their moment of crisis, can re-connect someone with their own immense internal power to survive.
It was an honour and a privilege to be part of this project and I have made what I hope will be lifelong friends as well as extended my own understanding from the shared experience of my colleagues.
Final words by Matthew McKenzie
I attended the Hold the Hope Launch on Friday the 8th of December 2023. The launch was at the Everyman Cinema Borough Yards.
I was not sure what to expect, but felt welcomed and involved. With collegues from Cygnet attending along with me, it was a great way to support the amazing work Jo Lambert and others had put into the project.
After watching the video Hold the Hope, I can certainly see the challenge that must be taken up by the police, rail service, schools and more. Suicide must be tackled as soon as possible and one of the best ways to do this is through education.
Health, social care and the mental health services can only grow stronger with the inclusion of those who have lived experience. It takes courage, determination and care for those who get involved, because they have their own challenges and trauma.
The film clearly shows the importance of holding on to hope. There is always a chance, but sometimes we cannot see this. Sometimes those who attempt suicide cannot see any hope and those who should help can lack the skills to spot and prevent suicides.
With Jo Lambert’s poem, I can see how this hits home. I can feel her words gently remind that there is hope.
I could not help but be intrigued after the film was shown. I wanted to hear so much from the inclusion of lived experience.
I asked Jo what she expected from the project and was amazed at how thoughtful her answer was. As a carer I can see the potential of the project. We need to include carers and help them tackle the challenges when caring for someone going Suicidal Ideation.
I admit there is so much to do, but with the Hold The Hope project, I can certainly see a strong foundation.
Continuing on the Black History Month focus. I have added another post due to receiving my poem being read wonderfully by carer Annette Davis.
Recently there was a Black History Month event held over at South London & Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. I was due to attend, but had other commitments. It was a shame, since I attended the previous Black History month event at SLaM NHS. The event included food, music, stalls and poetry.
Annette Davis a carer who I have known a very long time is the Chair of the PCREF Service Users and Carers Group at our local mental health trust.
She is very dedicated to her role and champions working together with health services. Annette has her own ethnic carer group over in Southwark and at times we do collaborate. I was astounded by Annette’s performance of my poem and had to a video of her reading my Black History month poem shown below.
Our History to Celebrate – Poem by Matthew McKenzie read by Annette Davis.
Poem from Blodwen Jones who has written a book of poems called MOONSTRUCK.
On Monday 17th August, this amazing lady will be 80 years young!
In my eyes, there is absolutely no way her praises can sung
enough to do her justice. How many people has she cared for over the years?
I truly wouldn’t want to hazard a guess – it would bring me to tears.
(Tears of respect for a selfless woman who truly cares.)
To tell you the truth, I don’t know her well, but I know enough to be able to say,
that she is an inspiration to myself and others on the IR at the end of the day.
I have never heard her complain once. In fact, the opposite is true –
and she really is a fount of wisdom for people like myself and you.
We need more people like Brenda, to make the world a better place.
She could be an inspiration for all of the whole of the human race.
HAVE A VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRENDA.
Not all Super hero’s wear capes, well except for this one. Brenda is that someone I have known for many years and it is her birthday today.
She has been there fighting that hard fight to get carers recognized and identified. Brenda has been through that difficult carer story and understands how horrible that carer journey can be.
She has been a member of many groups both carer and service user and we all hope she continues to contribute to the expert by experience cause.
Happy Birthday Brenda from
From Matthew Mckenzie
Also thanks from the Involvement Register Support Group, Southwark, Lambeth and Lewisham carers.
Welcome back to another blog post, this blog is on a well known subject within mental health fields and sometimes controversial. I decided to do a collaboration video with Malika Salih from “A Oreo Family”. We talked about mental health recovery, but this time Malika chose to focus on how mental health recovery affected her life.
If you wish to watch the video please click on the video below to play it.
As you can tell from the video Malika talked on how mental illness distrupted her life, but also gave her some insight into putting things into pespective. Malika rightly stated that mental health recovery is not the same for everyone, it all depends on the mental illness, the support one is getting and fighting stigma. Still it is so important to raise the awareness that mental health recovery can be possible under the right circumstances. It is a terrible situation to be aware that others fall deeper into mental illness when there are several chances of recovery.
As mentioned in my section of the video, I spoke about what impressed me about what Malika mentioned. It can be incredible difficult to speak openly about mental illness, there is still much stigma to face and the person can face ridicule. Without the support of friends, family or health professionals then the road to recovery will be a difficult one.
When mental illness impacts someone’s life, it can throw the persons life into turmoil, chaos and desperation could be the outcome, but there is always a small chance of reflection. We can begin to see how life can be incredibly fragile and as we begin to reflect on our own illness we slowly become aware of others, we become aware of the daily battle people face if they are struck with mental illness. This is just one of the reasons why Malika and myself continue to raise mental health awareness.
When you have time, please check out her videos off her media channel from the link below.
Welcome everyone and I am hoping you have had a good weekend. Today’s topic is another collaboration. This collaboration is with Alex from her Youtube channel “The truth about mental illness”. We decided to present on the importance of caring for someone suffering mental ill health.
There are situations where those with lived experience do not get support from a close relative or carer. There are those who feel carers are not essential. Each situation is complex and there is not often a right answer, but if someone suffering mental ill heath can get support from a carer (e.g. someone in the family or friend), then the outcomes usually tend to be better.
Living with mental illness can be challenging enough and having to go through mental ill health by oneself can be overwhelming. So I was glad to hear that Alex who is a mental health survivor wanted to present on how her mother provided support for her.
Alex promotes mental health experiences and well-being off her Youtube channel, it is worth a look to get her views, but before you check out her videos. I hope you could view the video we collaborated with below.
Alex spoke about important caring and support tips regarding how carers may have to judge the situation by gut feelings. There will be times when a carer has to assess how to provide care and support. It can be almost walking like eggshells if a carer crowds the “caree”. Alex explains this well in the video.
The collaborated video also looks into how a carer’s experiences can be vital in providing care and support, plus we look at some other tips which could be important to both the and service user or carer’s journey.
Welcome back to another blog post. This time I have gone back to focusing on mental health. For this post, I have done a collaboration video with KatieKat over in the States. By the way, I wish the US a happy Independence day, since it is the 4th of July.
Welcome back to another one of my collaboration series. This time I am collaborating with a mental health survivor from South Africa. Zoe and myself are collaborating on the topic of depression and how it affects people.
Welcome back to another blog post from Matthew Mckenzie, a carer from South East London. My website helps raise mental health awareness from a carers angle, but I feel my site is versatile enough to try cover other experiences. This is why this particular blog post is a collaboration with Jae Marie from Mental Lifestyle.
We both wanted to raise the subject of “why it is important to raise mental health awareness”.
Welcome back to another blog post from Matthew Mckenzie a carer from South London. I have done another collaboration video on the subject of bullying, which is actually quite common in schools and in the workplace, although not just restricted to those two areas.
Welcome back to another blog post, this blog is on a well known subject within mental health fields and sometimes controversial. I decided to do a collaboration video with Malika Salih from “A Oreo Family”. We talked about mental health recovery, but this time Malika chose to focus on how mental health recovery affected her life.
Welcome everyone and I am hoping you have had a good weekend. Today’s topic is another collaboration. This collaboration is with Alex from her 
A Caring Mind 