Category Archives: Event reviews

Reviews of events I have been to

PerPlexUs – MA Applied Imagination Degree Show Review

Welcome to another blog post on mental health and the world of caring from a carer’s perspective. You can check out my other blog posts which sometimes has posts about my thoughts on caring, mental health, reviews, videos and so on. Now on this post I want to talk about another Art event I visited over at the University of the Arts London.

On friday 12th of December, I went along to the PerPlexUs, MA Applied Imagination’s 2014 degree show, which defies myopic ideology and social infrastructures. There were plenty of art exhibitions to view and I even managed to also stay for the talk by artists describing their projects and the work they have produced across the world via the power of collaboration. This talk was on “How can creative collaboration save the world?“.

Now I don’t know if you managed to view my site post about the Edward Adamson Collection Talk on my blog, but feel free to visit the site for the link below.

Edward Adamson Collection Talk at Vout-0-Reenee

Going back to that talk I met a lovely artist by the name of Adele Orcajada at that talk done by Dr David O Flynn. She told me about her project on the Masters Applied Imagination degree.

Adele told me about her interest which was on Yarn, where Yarn is a soft fabric used for knitting. Adele told me her philosophy on the texture, colour and uses for yarn.

I almost envied her passion for the fabric. So when she told me she was having an exhibition over at the University of the Arts London, I thought to myself it would be great to go over there and check her project out. Adele also reminded me that Dr David O Flynn was doing a talk at the PerPlexUs exhibition, so I felt it would be great to capture that as well, although unfortunately David could not attend that day due to an emergency.

Now going back to the degree show, I felt the main emphasis of that show was how art could heal and help people recover and connect with each other.

Still the PerPlexUs 2014 event also focuses on the students from the degree course raising projects to engage with many vital current issues and concerns from the personal to the global, being either gender issues, youth, well-being and so on.

If you wish to see the video version of my review of this event, please press play on the video below.

So anyway, as I approached Adele’s stand. Her exhibition was very impressive, I wished I had arrived a bit earlier to take things slowly and examine the stall even further. Each part of the stall told a number of stories and projects about the fabric, which is Yarn. Adele’s focus for her project was “Can Yarn achieve recognition as a distinct material that connects us to emotion, culture and identity?”

Adele then explained to me a number of her projects, one being story book about different types of Yarn. The other being a journal being turned into a ball of Yarn, plus Yarn rings which I thought were very interesting. I was also amazed at how the project aimed itself on dementia issues, where Adele took her Yarn for patients to use, although some would just touch the Yarn and felt at ease with it so they could sleep.

Another thing that interested me at Adele’s project was the Yarn placed in bubble wrap, I was so tempted to press and pop the wrap, but thought I had better leave it alone.

Adele showed me the types of Yarn at her exhibit section and explained further the properties and texture of Yarn, she also encouraged me to touch each Yarn fabric while she explained how it was nice to pull the string of yarn or make something out of the it.

Unfortunately Adele was very busy that evening setting up much of the exhibition and also the talk on “Creative Collaboration”, so I took it upon myself to check out some more exhibits, I was hoping to hear more from Adele at the lecture theatre soon, before Adele rushed off, she invited me to touch and play with the Yarn some more and make my own thoughts about how the Yarn felt.

I also took the chance to go through her lovely stories about the pots of Yarn on her stall.

The Play Machine section by Ritika Jobanputra

So what was the next exhibit I checked out? Well I came across an attractive set of colours near placed near the wall. This was the “Play Machine” section by Art Student Ritika Jobanputra. Now her project aspect was on “How can the art of self-expression reach a wider audience of children through ‘play’ with sound and colour?”

Here is a small explanation from Ritika herself, basically “Play Machine” is a low-tech creative, recreational and educational tool, which combines both sound and colour, giving children the opportunity to freely express themselves.

One of things that struck at the Play Machine Exhibit was the messages on the wall.

Where a quote read out “Through self-expression in play children resolve conflicts, express outwardly what they are experiencing internally” Erikson, 1977

I also took note of how the pattern’s of paint were painted on paper up along the wall as if it was done playfully, but also being rather attractive to watch.

I decided to also take a memento of the exhibit took a card on how I felt play was actually unproductive in a good way.

You are a “pack of cards” exhibit

One of the installations I stopped at before I got to Adele’s exhibit was one done by Mitchell Cutmore. His project was on “How can playing with personality help you play your cards right?” I was wondering why a large number of cards were placed on the wall.

This was rather perplexing, but when I approached to find out more information, the project explained that this was a grounding metaphor to help people know themselves better by playing card games to boost self-awareness. Here people can shuffle, split and personalize their personality and it is suggested the card game “Rummy” to do such a task.

I then turned to check out a large section of exhibits in the middle of the hall and I was drawn to an exhibit nearly laid out.

The “Work as we Play” Exhibit

The next project I saw was called “Work as we play”. Now this exhibit was done by Zerlyna Merilla and this project was on “How can gamification increase millennial employee engagement to the company?”

Well this reminds me of Google, since I tend to feel they aim to merge work as if the employee was playing.

Zerlyna emphasis on this section is How that Work as we Play, is an internet-based system wrapped in a ribbon of fun for employers to engage their employees.

I did not spend too long at this exhibit, but being an IT person, I did attempt to create a character off the laptop placed on the stall.

The “Sound Hanger” Exhibit

I moved on to an interesting section that looked to be called “Sound Hanger”, this one was done by Kwan Hee Cho. Her project was on “How can multi-sensory tagging enhance the shopping experience for the visually impaired?“.

Here it is mentioned that when the blind pick out clothes, they know basic information about material and shape of clothes by using the sense of touch. Here this project provides a new shopping experience through hearing, transferring colours of clothes into sound, plus giving experience to sighted shoppers.

The Dialogue & Bridge Exhibit

I quickly then glanced and explored the project to my right and this was done by Dongran Li, which questioned “How can we break down the barriers and generate the new film co-production possibilities between the UK and China”

I felt this was a fairly interesting project, which looked at how London is a global centre of production for screen industry, but Dongran noticed it was a good time for the Chinese film market to help develop fresh ideas.

The Contemporary Art Section

Soon I found myself at a phrase I recognised in the art movement, contemporary art. Here the artist Lujia questioned “How can online and physical space combine art environments to promote and develop communication?”

Here this interesting project looked at blending the two elements of online and physical environments together, where art does not just exist on the internet. I felt the project was attractive and nicely laid out.

As I looked around the large hall, I kept noticing this sign placed around the place. It looked to be tribal or almost some far eastern symbol. I wished I had asked someone what it was or what it stood for, the symbol was certainly perplexing.

Polymeric Islands exhibit

Eventually I found myself attracted to another symbol and was interested in the word below the symbol called “Join the resistance”. When I stepped closer to examine the stall, I noticed it was completed by art student Jennifer Glein where her project focused on “Can a surrealist approach towards ecological messaging engage people to rethink attitudes and altar their behaviours towards the plastic polluted oceans?”

Ok, ok….that was a long project title, but I guess there are quite a few around.

So what does this polymeric islands mean?

Well I read that this project is concerned with individual action and aims to show that action DOES count. In fact, it proposes that this is the only way in which change can come about, where one person changing one small part of their world, again and again……I like that.

The project looks to attack the problem of consumerism and our ecological myopia.

I spent quite a while looking at the Polymeric Landmark placed near the exhibition.

The Kibi Schultz Installation

The next installation was done by Kibi Schultz. I was really impressed by the use of space and colour and the closer I got to the display, the more I saw the message about the exploitation about female children’s bodies, this being on the topic of Female Genital mutilation and the pressure to change their bodies.

The Consumption exhibit

A few steps away was another exhibit, visitors to the exhibit were asked “What is your inconspicuous Consumption?“.

Going back to the large sheet of paper on the wall, I did not really know what my inconspicuous consumption is or was. So I just noted that I agreed with someone else’s view.

The Self-acknowledgement stall

Out of all the stalls and exhibits that drew my attention, there were 4 of them and although my main interest was in Adele’s stall, this one by was close to my field. Here at this exhibit the project was on “How can self-acknowledgement through the help of a psychologist lessen people’s emotional sufferings?”

Here this project asked if people ever considered consulting a psychologist and looked at the stigma and embarrassment of those who were too afraid to admit this. Here this exhibition has a blog to help raise the awareness of mental health and I glad to see an exhibition whose core aim was mental wellbeing, the project also has a blog, which I not managed to get hold of as yet.

Who is the next Ai Weiwei? Section

One of the last exhibits I checked out was compiled by Belinda Shi whose theme was on “Who is the next Ai Weiwei and can western audiences explore Chinese contemporary art beyond the political perspective?”

What impressed me at one of the last installations I visited was how engaging Belinda Shi was about her work.

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Belinda took the time to explain what her exhibit, which allowed people to tear off or cut off the paper on the wall to reveal cards on Chinese art.

You can find out a bit more on Belinda’s work off her facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/WhoIsTheNextAiWeiwei/info?tab=page_info

Cutting the sleeves Section

Next to Belinda’s work was Yinghui Cao’s project looking at “Cutting the sleeve – How can Chinese gay men be encouraged to refuse sham marriages?”.

There was a video of a young Chinese man cutting off some clothes from what I believe is an ancient Chinese story was mesmerising.

The project is a campaign to encourage Chinese gay men to be honest with their sexuality and refuse to get married to straight women in sham marriages. This perhaps might be the situation in China, where pressure is placed on many to marry, but I guess the same can be in the west on some circumstances.

The talk

Well I visited a few more installations and exhibits, obviously I could not visit all of them and I am sorry I could not mention any more artists since there was so many to mention, but all the stalls and exhibits offered something for the viewer, but now I want to move on to the next part of the Perplexus art event at the University of the Arts London

This part was the talk about how creative collaboration can save the world

We had several hosts at the talk, who were so happy to see people coming together and being creative and where there are ways making people think in a new light. The thing is that socialising can be a creative process and bring a community connection.

At the talk we got to hear from 3 students the first being Adele who talked through a cycle of pictures each representing her projects. Unfortunately the pictures cycled fairly fast, so I could not capture all of them, but for Adele her projects were on

Adele

1. Using Yarn to make Tangible network
2. An Unmake project where old sweaters are turned into to new sweaters to aid recycling
3. The Awareness champion of a person knitting as he walks to raise awareness of dementia
4. Sharing messages to the world
5. Turning stories into yarn, mainly because people couldn’t read her writing

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We also got to hear from 2 other artists.

1. The use of the Imagination symbol
2. Workshops on recreation of old
3. Creating art on the cups to enhance objects
4. Projects portraying the Art of history
5. Examining the paintings of Mary Dubin’s sea horse

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1. Rehabilitation on child abuse
2. Somewhere over the rainbow.
3. Daughter working with the artist on FGM awareness
4. Raising awareness of the wasting of water
5. Inconspicuous consumption – old clothes to new clothes innovative.

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Next we heard from the 3 artists at the panel who two I have briefly mentioned already.

The first was Regina frank

Now Regina talked about on one project where she Worked on an art piece for 28 days to emulate the workers on slave wage. E.g. developing country workers.

She talked about how she has travelled around the world while using the internet as digital information and found words that she felt she had some connection to.

Made a kimono out of her favourite text while over in Japan

Went to Atlanta to make an art on a game where no one wins, felt amazing experience of people contributing on poetry.

One project was on a Mushroom dress where mushrooms were grown on a dress and shared with others.

An interest project using sound where she used Cracking out from a mould and also used the sound of cracking the fruit open and painting with it, the sound was an amazing experience for Regina.

Another project was on the Powerful perspective of painting a brush on a dress, how the brush moves and not us. If you want to hear more about Regina’s work then visit her site at http://www.regina-frank.de/

We then heard from Maria Dubin

Who told us of the experience she had when trying to explain to a big company about a piece of art work, but it showed how difficult it is to make an art piece. The problem was on how nobody understood her about how hard art is to make. Something was wrong. Now Maria wants to be part of the world, no more artist language, she felt she spent too long with other artists.

Her mission was not to be so private, but take her art studio out into the world. Into museums.

Her Studio was also taken into a hospice, and although as we know people die there, the project was challenging on how art would be taken to a place like that, but maria was nervous about the interest.

Maria found out she was in dialogue with other people, she noticed art can HEAL.

Maria also painted sea horses near business, which helped a business because people wanted to have their picture taken by the seahorse.

Seahorses painted around the world, seems to be connecting people and she has made film “sea horse symphony.

Feel free to check out Maria Dubin’s site at http://www.mariadubin.com/

The last artist on the panel was Jazz Rasool

Now he Works with people a lot on transforming their skills. Jazz spoke about his transition model which has 3 processes, where the first is Awaken then collaborate and transform – ACT

Here on this model, it is a Working wheel, where each Spends time in each cycle, but relies on it to build up momentum.

In order to be creative, have intent, cook it, transform it.
Explains a bit on Awakening cycle, connecting better with yourself and the world around you. Half of the cycle is about waking up.

He the moved on to the collaboration cycle, where he explained on the use of committing to collaborate with others, half the cycle is cooperation and building of trust of people. Need commitment, but can lead to bigger things as influence the world as a whole in itself.

Jazz warned on avoiding the competitive cycle, this is where you go in reverse, which is backwards, the thing is we need to contribute.

The last cycle was the Transformation cycle, but half the cycle is planning, but after a while this turns into action, and if this is done well it can lead to impacts and that is done really well it can lead to another spin of the cycle.

I am sure I have missed so much out of Jazz presentation, but you can read up on more of his ideas at http://www.jazzrasool.com/

After the talk, I actually got involved in the event with the students where we participated in several group workshops. One was writing a word or phrase that can relate to the community in which we are drawn to. We then used the words or phrases of other artists to make a story. We then moved on to learning about our abilities and talents and learning about other people’s talents who are opposite from us, but also opens up room for learning from our weakness.

The last section was connecting with each other through A web of Yarn, each with a different colour, texture and length.

Overall I enjoyed the event and to be honest this was the students final projects before they graduated and I wish them well with their future projects on pushing the boundaries of art, using art to make a statement or activism, help raise awareness with art and most importantly experiencing creativity in their lives where art helps them in their journey.

SHARP Gallery – Hidden Gems Art exhibition

Welcome to another blog on caring on mental health. On this blog post, I want to talk about an art exhibition I went to check out over at the SHARP gallery located in Brixton on Brixton road. The private viewing was on the 10th of December 2014. Now SHARP stands for Social Inclusion, Hope and Recovery Project.

Basically SHARP is a specialist team of mental health professionals focussing on recovery and wellbeing for people accessing the mental health services in Lambeth. The team is made up of Occupational Therapists and Psychologists and they help provide group and one to one interventions, helping people develop their mind and body and offer types of therapy.

A bit about the SHARP galley. Now the SHARP galley was set up in 2012 by local artist and carer Mary Salome.

Mary Salome

The galley has exhibited the work of over 70 artists and many of whom use the mental health services. The gallery aims to be inclusive to all with no selection panels or screening of artists.

Eventually the SHARP gallery will become the Salome gallary by the end of 2014.

Well what was this art exhibition about? The show was called “Hidden Gems”, and it is a celebration of staff art within South London and Maudsley NHS foundation trust or SLaM for short. South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust provides the widest range of NHS mental health services in the UK.

Although I have done a written blog post of the event, I have also done a video blog as well with narration.

Going back to the exhibition, I managed to chat to Anna Croucher about what to expect at the exhibition and I also chatted to Sarah Josefsberg who is an Occupational Therapist. Sarah had some interesting views about why people paint and how she felt art is a way to break away from the label of mental health stigma.

The first SLaM staff and artist I spoke to was Dr Richard Corrigall is a Consultant Psychiatrist at Snowsfields Adolescent Unit. He is Chair of Trust’s Local Negotiating Committee and CAMHS lead for medical student teaching.

Dr Richard Corrigall

Here Richard showed me his work called “Escape”, which was inspired by hearing a story from someone using the services, although he has recently got back into art, he felt the story from the service user was so inspiring that he visited her site and that got him into paint. His “Escape” painting looks into recovering from Mental ill health, but is also a form of kaleidoscope and playing around.

Next I spoke to Carol burtt who is a psychologist for the IAPTs team in Lewisham. IAPTs stands for Increasing Access TO Psychological Therapies. Now Carol showed me two very large paintings.

Carol Burtt

Carol Burtt 1

These paintings were untitled, but abstract in showing some form of a railway track. Interestingly the two paintings were meant to be formed together, but Carol mentioned to me that it is up to the viewer to relate to what they feel about the paintings.

The next SLaM artist I spoke to was Jill Abrahart who is an IAPTs employment worker. Jill helps and engages those who try to find work. Her painting was when she was on holiday in Rhodes and she managed to capture and paint the sunrise. Jill also showed me 3 other pieces of her work.

Jill Abrahart

One of them was called “lavender” and the other being “view from a window”. Again Jill was on holiday, but she was playing around and experimenting with paint.

Jill Abrahart

One of her other pieces of work was when she was going through a difficult time, the painting was called “Preparation for Separation”. Basically she painted through her expression and her the painting is a moody blue filled with splashes of different colours.

Preparation for Separation

I then talked to Alex Harwood who is an Arts Facilitator. He facilitates two groups one being the Blackfriars CDAT group and the other being the SLaM ADart group. He has been on the art scene for around about 1 year and has done work at the Institute of psychiatry Psychology and Neuroscience. The first piece he showed me was a mixed media painting called “what a way to make a living”. The painting which was one of my favourites at the show, was about how travelled into work years ago and parts of the painting is on the tools he used for work all those years ago.

Alex Harwood

Alex then showed me another photograph picture, which was one of his art work. Here Alex is trying to capture real life.

Alex Harwood

After chatting and having some refreshments. I then spoke to Paula Mochair who is part of the STEPs team working on STEP art. Paula showed me her photograph art work on the homelessness in India and she showed me the mixed media painting which was inspired by her 3 legged cat who liked to stash ripped up papers in his litter.

Paula Moclair

I then chatted to Terence Wilde about his 3 colourful paintings, but unfortunately none of his mental health work was on show that event.

Next was Carol Stevenson who is the membership officer for SLaM. Carol showed me 3 of her paintings, one titled “In the undergrowth” and the other called “fishermen” where she managed to paint some fishermen while on holiday painting some waterfalls. Her paintings were based on experimenting with shapes and colours.

carol stevenson

The last artist I spoke to was Helen Shearn who is the Head of Arts Strategy for the Mental Health trust. Helen spoke about her photograph paintings she did some time ago.

Helen Shearn

Well overall I enjoyed attended the art show and talking to the various artists. I was really surprised at how many SLaM staff were creative in their art work. It was great how they supported how art can help others and had the time to even put their art on display. It was a shame I could not capture all the artists at the exhibition, but hopefully I ll get around to it at some other art show, who knows?

I thank Mary and her team on being so helpful for allowing me to help blog the event and I thank Helen Shearn and the other artists for taking the time to explain their artwork.

Hear Us December Forum 2014

Welcome to another blog post from a carer who is caring for a close relative using the mental health services. This particular blog post is about a mental health forum over in Croydon, which is free to attend as service user, carer or even mental health professionals.

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This mental health forum is called the ‘Hear Us Open Forum, but what is Hear Us all about?

Taken from their website.

Hear Us is Croydon’s Mental Health Service User Group which acts as a coordinating body to facilitate, and ensure service users involvement in, the planning, delivery and monitoring of mental health services in Croydon. Helping to improve the quality of the services commissioned and delivered in Croydon objectives.

To relieve the needs of people living in the London Borough of Croydon and surrounding areas who have mental health problems by provision of services and advice.

To advance education about mental health for the public benefit in the London borough of Croydon and surrounding areas with the object of creating awareness and reducing the stigma attached to mental health.

Now Hear Us run their open forum every 2^nd Tuesday of each month. Unfortunately I have been so busy that I have missed 2 of their past open forums, but this time I was determined to catch their December forum and I was not disappointed.

So what was in store for us at the December Hear Us forum?

Well first we got to hear about the latest Hear Us AGM.

Next was the presentation by Lee Roach on the Reablement Service

Plus last but not least was the Mental Health Strategy from Susan Grose one of the Croydon CCG Commissioners.

First we had a lovely hot lunch for the cold December day. I was fairly greedy and had several slices of pizza.

Next up was David Ashton chairing the event and going through the forum procedure and agenda for the day.

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We discussed the Hear Us annual report for 2013/14. We were all handed out a copy of the report and members of Hear Us actually got the report earlier on. The report was an interesting read where we got to hear from the Chair, an introduction to members of the Hear Us board. We also got to read up about the latest developments on the Linkworking project and view the Hear Us accounts and financial review.

At the forum we heard more about the members of the Hear Us board and some of them introduced themselves to the attendees of the forum. There were also some interesting and probing questions, here are some I picked up at the December forum.

One member was interested in Hear Us aims on Autism.

Another person asked on how people became trustees

I remember one of the Hear Us workers replying to the question about how rigorous the process is on applying to become a trustee.

This was when some of the Trustees of the Hear Us board introduced themselves to us. One of them Felicia who was sitting next to chair of the forum David Ashton. Felicia explained how much experience she has within mental health and the mental health services.

The attendees of the forum were asked if they were happy with trustees, which I felt was a good question and showed that Hear Us valued their member’s opinions.

The first presentation at the forum was Lee Roach who is an Occupational Therapist on the Croydon Mental Health Reablement Project.

Lee told us the following at the forum.

Who he is and what he does

What the Mental Health Reablement service project in Croydon

How important it is for Reablement project to be inline with the new care act coming out in 2015.

Lee mentioned that the Reablement services are still fairly new and there are not many reablement services out there.

Lee also explained a bit about what Reablement actually means. Basically reablement means helping people regain the ability to look after themselves as in self care.

Lee then talked about how some are referred to their Reablement service although they do not take referral from GPs.

However anyone can be referred from IAPTs or Community Mental Health Teams.

The reablement project is actually a pilot, which means it is under evaluation at the same time to see how the project affects the community. The project has been running for 2 years and a report out in 2015.

However some people at the forum were worried that people being reffered back to GP and they wondered why the GP can’t refer patients back to services.

There also was other important questions aimed at Lee and they were.

Why could the reablement project not run in conjunction with services.

– It was mentioned that it is important to state the reablement service does not deal with medication and those referred are at a point of recovery when being reffered to the service. However someone followed up on the answer and stated if you do not support on medication, what happens if there are medical issues after refferal?

One member of the audience felt that the Care act must be empowering to Service User and that they feel dis-empowered in the London borough of Croydon, he wondered who is making these decisions on these services.

– We are under a steering group under Mind and HearUs, take makes sure our services are in the best services levels in regarding service users.

Another interested discussion was on the option on ‘easy in easy out’ service over in Purly where the GP refer back to team faster if they are concerned, this is where urgent appointments available in 7 days.

A felt another good question was someone asking what are the evaluation of the service so far?

Lee stated so far there are positive findings of the service, but they need to engage with carers more. Plus they are also focusing on leisure and work of people’s lives, plus learning new skills (reading and writing, new courses, yoga, exercise).

One last question I noticed was that one person was worried about those who do not have a care coordinator, but were passed on to outside agencies, seems two-tiered group.

After a short break and some networking we moved on to the next presentation, which was presented by Susan Grose the Croydon CCG mental health Commissioner. Susan spoke about the Croydon CCG MENTAL HEALTH STRATEGY and wanted to hear the views of service users, carers and members of the public.

Susan Grose was actually an Interim commissioner in Lewisham a while back and is now a commissioner for Croydon

Susan spoke about how the borough of Croydon is changing and is more likely going to be more deprived. One in Six adults in Croydon has a hemtal health need and it is stated that Anxiety and depression are projected to increase by 5%.

Susan mentioned the need to improve integration of mental health with physical health, which is something I clearly agree and support. Susan also spoke about the need to better address the needs of BME communities where there is a 40% of acute admissions. Croydon CCG have also invested in the use of IAPT services, which basically means Increasing Access to Psychological Therapies.

Susan then moved on to presenting the need to ensure the wider determinants of health to be addressed, that being housing, education and employment support. Plus also addressing variation in primary care and easy access to whole life support to improve and maintain mental well being.

Croydon CCG have been busy consulting with service users and stakeholders, they have held a number of workshops with GPs and developed associated strategies for CAMHS and OAMH. They have committed to the investment of £5.2 million to stabilise the system and invest in community services, plus invested £600K in IAPT services.

Susan spent some time at the forum showing us the Proposed Adult Mental Health Model where we were explained the steps on stabilisation of the mental health services in Croydon and how gatekeeping, capacity building and relapse prevention can fit into this model.

Some of the Key aims of the strategy is to ensure voluntary and third sector provision works alongside with primary and secondary health services. Another aim is to improve the quality of life of people with mental health needs, improve access to mental health services, strengthen partnership working and ensure there is education available on mental health awareness.

The next steps for the strategy is to develop a strategy action plan with service users and stakeholders although I do hope they involve the carers. Other steps are to continue to work in collaboration with other CCG commissioners and also refine the community adult mental health.

So what questions came up in the discussions?

One person was worried about waiting times on IAPTs, However it was explained that lack of funding was a result of this and they are working to improve waiting times.

Another question was on the cutting beds to increase throughput was not the best idea, the person felt it is best to keep those beds, the commissioner agreed with this statement.

A good question was on the problem of hostel’s closing and the concern of hostel provisioning. It was stated that there was worry about many of the hostel’s are privately owned, need to look carefully at where those in those areas, receiving services in the right setting, its not an easy problem to solve, so no answer as yet.

Another interesting question was on how to access dementia services, which takes too long. Susan did agree and stated that dementia is high on national agenda. The UK is an ageing population and dementia is a silent time-bomb, we need to educate people.

There was also many other interesting questions, but overall I really enjoyed the forum and look forward to the next forum, I felt David chaired the forum very well and the staff were friendly and kind.

Review of the Lewisham Mental Health and Wellbeing Day

Hello again and welcome to another blog post on a carer’s perspective on mental health and wellbeing. Talking about those two last points, there was a mental health and wellbeing day on the 20th of November over at the Catford Civic Suite in Lewisham.

The Lewisham Mental Health and Wellbeing Day is presented by the NHS Lewisham CCG, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and Lewisham Council.

I just had to attend the mental health and wellbeing event, this is because I am a carer of a close relative suffering mental ill health. Last year I was lucky enough to chair the 2013 event and perhaps I ll place the video of that event later on in this blog post, but what was in store for us this year?

Well this year the MH and Wellbeing stakehold event wanted to concentrate on the service user/survivor aspect. So we had Carmine De Rosa chair the event. Next was a Mental Health commissioning update for 2014 and this was presented by Pamela Martin, GP Mental Health Lead for Lewisham CCG.

After Pamela’s talk came the presentation from Sarah Yiannoullou who is the Managing Director from NSUN (National Service User Network). Her talk was on inclusion, involvement and influence of those using the services and the NSUN 4PI standards.

Then last to speak was John Ryan talking about an alternative view of the Mental Health system, John is a comedian and his talk certainly lightened up the mood since we all know Mental Health can be a difficult subject to discuss.

Still, the event was not just about talks, throughout the day from 10.00 am till 4:00 pm the event numerous workshops, stalls, wellbeing activities, refreshments and a chance to network and most importantly gain information to aid in recovery or getting support in caring. I also noticed some members of the public attended to try find out what mental health is all about.

Unfortunately I cannot go into so much detail about the event this time, but why is this? Well for one I was recovering from a horrible cold, so I could not gain access to the talks or workshops because I kept coughing and sneezing. Secondly I do not want to repeat what is found in booklets about the event, I perfer this blog post to be about how I experienced the event and what I got up to most of the day.

Well on that sunny morning as I entered the Civic Suite, I was greeted by friendly staff who signed me in and handed out the agenda and activity information for the day. I then explored around the building and watched the impressive presentation slide of the wellbeing event.

Unfortunately my cold was getting the better of me so I had to sit down and gobble up some oranges kindly left for visitors to take. I was then greeted by Gráinne from Lewisham CCG and a few others who were glad I attended the event.

Eventually the public were called into the main chamber to hear the talks and I also went in for around about…..5 minutes before I started coughing and wheezing again. I just managed to get some of the talk where they presented on improving recovery and challenging mental health labels in order to reduce stigma.

Soon I had to head back out to the waiting area and check to see if I could go back in the conference chamber, but it was no good so instead I took a trip to Civic Suite’s Lower floor. There were a vast array of stalls and I could not visit them all, but I ll explain what stalls took most of my attention.

The first stall that took my attention was SLaM Stall or the South London and Maudsley Stall. I could see many booklets and information about the mental health trust and also more information on how to become a member of the trust. I also picked up a flicked through SLaM’s latest newsletter about the Happy Heads event, which is an event aimed at teenagers to promote mental health and wellbeing. I think I did a blog post about that event.

After a while I tried again to enter the conference chamber and just caught a bit of the talk by NSUN on the 4PI standards, but what is NSUN all about? NSUN stands for National Survivor User Network and is a network for mental health in England. NSUN gives and promotes a powerful voice for those using the services and their carers, but they also do a lot more.

The talk was about how their work has led to the development of the 4PI framework for involvement: a simple, yet robust framework around which to base standards for good practice, and to measure, monitor and evaluate involvement.

– Principles
– Purpose
– Presence
– Process
– Impact

Involvement of those using the mental health services is critical not only in aiding in recovery, but reducing the isolation felt by those using the services. At the core of mental health services should be the service user perspective. Such implementations are of course not an easy thing to archieve, but must always be one of the aims of any mental health service provider.

Again my cold played up on me and I found myself beating a hasty retreat back to the lower floor again to view some more stalls. The next stall was impressive and this was the lewisham healthwatch stall. Healthwatch is an independent consumer champion that gathers and represents the public’s views on health and social care services locally or nationally. The most interesting document I picked up from this stall is their report on one of SLaM’s units, which I flicked through. What came to mind when I went through the report was transparency and cooperation with other independent organisations.

The next stall I visited was the Samaritans stall, I have spoken to the Samaritans several times on many events. Basically the Samaritan’s are a registered charity aimed at providing emotional support to anyone in emotional distress. I spent quite a long time on this stall swapping ideas and networks, because one of their staff is a member of the Lewisham mental health connection, which I am also a member.

The next stall was on IAPTs (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies
), which offers a range of psychological therapies to adults 18 years and over. I glanced over a few of their leaflets to take home and read, plus I have been on many IAPTs courses in the past.

Eventually I wandered over to chat to a the SLaM’s carers support officer who I have known for many years, she was busy minding the SLaM’s Family & Carers information stall and I could see the purple family and carer booklet which I was lucky enough to contribute to. The Mental Health Trust aims to support carers as much as they can and this stall shows they are working hard to help carers of those using the services.

After visiting the SLaM Family & Carers support stall, I moved on to the Carer’s Lewisham Stall and spoke to Jey and her new volunteer who specilises in dementia support. I picked up one of their leaflets, which was very colourful and flicked through it. As a carer, I have been using Lewisham Carers a long time.

Then next stall was on “Community Connections”. Community Connections is a development and access-facilitation project with a preventative health and wellbeing focus. I picked up one of their leaflets which was on a wellbeing story, just on the focus for the day. Soon I moved on to another impressive stall which is the SmokeFree campiagn for lewisham.

I eventually I ended up at the MyHealthLocker stall. This stall is about self empowerment using technology to monitor your own health and allow doctors and even carers to aid in your care. myhealthlocker allows you to have control over your health information. Service users can access their care plan from the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, keep track of how they are feeling, access resources and tips on staying well and manage their health and wellbeing. I was given a free T-shirt for attending the stall.

The next stall I spent talking to the staff for a while in order to catch up with them. This stall is about the Lewisham Mental Health Connection are group of people working in the voluntary sector who are committed to improving mental health in Lewisham.

After a few more visits to some stalls, I ended up back in the upper floor to have some nice carribean lunch and continued to network with many others.

Unfortunately I missed out on the workshops and more talks, but I guess its impossible to be everywhere and considering I had a cold, I really enjoyed the day. I can’t wait for next years event.

Edward Adamson Collection Talk at Vout-0-Reenee

Welcome to another blog post. I hope you have been checking out most of my blog site as you might already be aware that this site is aimed at those interested in mental health, however a fair bit of the blog site is about mental health through a carers eyes.

Anyway with this particular blog post, I am back over in the art world and I am not sure if you have managed to check out one of my videos on World Mental Health Day 2014, but at the last section of the video I attended a talk by Dr David O Flynn who is the head of the Adamson Collection the largest collection of Psychotherapeutic art.

I thought that this time I wanted to hear more about the Edward Adamson collection, so I attended another event on the 12th of Novemeber 2014. The event was held over at Vout-0-Reenee located over in Tower Hamlets, which is a lovely club where people can swap ideas on art and also attend events on art, poetry and creativity.

The club is run by Sophie Parkin and her Dutch husband Jan Vink. The club also has a lovely art gallery where many of the paintings I managed to view.

After a while David who is a psychiatrist over at Lambeth Hospital begun his talk about Edward Adamson and Edward’s art collection, but who is Edward Adamson?

Edward Adamson was a British artist, and he is known as the father of Art Therapy and also the creator of the Adamson Collection. Edward Adamson died 3 February 1996, but he left a legacy on Psychotherapeutic art.

Adamsonportrait

Edward main emphasis was on using art to heal people, that being where the inpatients of the asylums would use art as a way to try and slowly recover from mental ill health. The sad thing is that patients of the asylums would be closed off from the world or society and so art therapy was critical for those shut away from others.

Edward Adamson worked alone with 100s of people where he helped them to create and express themselves in art.

The one thing I ve noticed when David does his talks is how he mentions that creativity can lead to healing and I sincerely agree with him. Edward also viewed art as something not to be over examined or analysed. The main thing was to get the patients to just create things and project themselves into their art.

The Adamson collection has had a wide media coverage, exhibition and a festival. The collection is comprised of over 5,000 paintings, drawings, sculpture and ceramics produced by patients who worked with him from 1946 to the mid-1990s.

Talking about festivals. There was a Adamson Arts Festival held over at South London and Maudsley where the festival took placed over at the Maudsley Learning center around mid 2014.

The festival was joined by RAW Sounds, which is a project of creative media sessions for people accessing mental health services, open to young people and adults between the ages of 16-65 accessing mental health services.

David talked about how the collection was placed in Lambeth hospital, but after a while the art became in danger of being neglected. There were 4,500 unframed paintings that was needed to be placed in a safe location.

David managed to have the Wellcome Library relocate a large number of paintings to a safer storage facility.

Throughout the talk, I was very impressed on how much David talked about the use of Art as therapy and his knowledge about Edward Adamson’s view on art. David talked more about the number of different types of art collections from Edward Adamson.

David also talked about the patients work of art and how Edward’s paintings have a strong representation of women.

At the talk we were shown a film called “Insulin Coma Dreams”, which showed more about the Adamson Arts festival, this film was directed and filmed by Andrew locke, who also gave a talk about the film and what it represents.

Andrew locke who is an expert by experience was also inspired by work of Adamson, so he made the film on the closing event of the Edward Adamson Festival.

All in all I enjoyed the presentation and talk by David and Andrew, there was lots to learn about the collection. What is more impressive is the energy and dedication by those who wish for people’s works of art to live on.

Carers Lewisham AGM 2014 Review

Welcome back to another of my blog posts. If you do not know already, I tend to blog about caring, especially caring for those suffering mental ill health, if I am not blogging about caring, then I review events on psychiatry, psychology or sociology, if not reviewing events, I help on mental health promotion and also review the odd audio lecture.

However this particular blog post is about the Carer’s Lewisham Annual General Meeting. This AGM took place on the 7th of November 2014 over at the Methodist Hall church in Albion Way.

The Carers Lewisham AGM was about the recent developments Carers Lewisham have been up to, plus a chance to hear from 5 carers talking about their journeys as carers and how Carers Lewisham has helped them.

Before I continue, what exactly is Carers Lewisham? What do they do? Here is one of their videos about Philip the young carers advocate.

Now continuing about what Carers Lewisham does. Taken from their site. Carers Lewisham supports Carers in the London Borough of Lewisham from aged 5 upwards. They provide a range of services including advice, information, emotional support, breaks, opportunities to meet other carers, time out from caring activities such as relaxation days and well being sessions; coping strategies, specialist support for parent carers, carers of people with dementia, carers of people with mental health problems, older carers and carers who are caring for someone who is nearing the end of their life.

So you see Carers Lewisham does a lot for carers and as a carer myself, all this help is appreciated, considering that us carers are often unappreciated at times. I was so pleased with all the support Carers Lewisham has given me over the years, I was more than happy to be one of the 5 carers to do a talk at their AGM.

I will not go into too much over the Carers Lewisham AGM, but what tends to happen there? Well basically we get the minutes from the previous year’s AGM. We then got to ask questions on any matter’s arising. Members are provided with the previous years Annual Report and Audited Accounts from the previous year and we get to hear any other business.

It has been a difficult year due many cuts in services and I am sure a lot of other charities are facing similar difficulties, so Carers Lewisham was no exception. I know they have been working very hard on behalf of carers like myself who also face a tough time almost trying to survive.

However from the past year, Carers Lewisham have still been very busy and have done several outstanding Achievements. They have gained the ‘Center of Excellence Award’ from Carers Trust. Carers Lewisham have also developed their social media communications and their Ebay shop is going strong. Plus they have supported hundred’s more carers and saved carers thousands of pounds of legal fees by helping them with Power of Attorney’ forms.

Carers Lewisham have done all this and more. You might have noticed I often blog about other carer centers, but being since I am from the London Borough of Lewisham, I ll always have Carers Lewisham close to my heart.

After the AGM was finished, the guests and members at the Methodist Hall Church got to hear from 5 carers stories about their journey. I felt so privileged to tell my story and journey, I felt the day was quite special to me, even though deep down my heart aches with sorrow for who I look after.

Every carer who spoke at the AGM about their journey struggled to hold back their emotions, all the 5 carers let the audience know how much their caring role has affected them and how Carers Lewisham has sort to get them through a difficult and challenging role.

Another carer story told was from Kevin Wheelan who told the audience about who he is looking after and how difficult the journey was for himself. Kevin has been active with many organisations and groups. I could say that Kevin is a great spokesperson for carers.

Overall I felt the AGM went rather well and it was with sad regret to hear the CEO of Carers Lewisham Diana Jones is to leave the charity after some months. The reason why? She is compelled to care for her close relatives.

I have known Diana many years and from what I have seen and will remember of her is that smile and putting carers close to her heart.

Here is a video below with some hints and tips from Diana.

Going back to my story, I said the usual things about my journey, but if I have not thanked all the staff at carers Lewisham then I do apologize, I have special thanks for Jey Siva who has helped me through the most difficult periods of my life.

Jey has attended meetings with me and advocated on my behalf, even outside her working hours. You could say both Jey and myself have walk the journey together.

Who knows what the future may bring on our caring journeys, but one thing will always remain is that I will never forget the great support Carers Lewisham has provided for myself.

Here’s to the great memories and adventures to come.

London Met Connect – event review #LMetConnect

Welcome to another blog post. You know? I like attending well-being days and health events, especially events to do with mental health. Well I was in luck, on Thursday the 23rd of October, I just managed to attend the London Metropolitan university “London Met Connect”, which was presented by the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities.

The aim of the event was to get people thinking about mental health. The event gave attendees the opportunity to explore mental health and recovery from a number of perspectives, these including service user participation and local, nation and global initiatives.

Continue reading →

Review of “The Anatomy of Melancholy”

Its about time I did another review, however this one is different. Usually I attend events, conferences, engagement events and awareness days. On the 23rd of October 2014 I decided to pop over to to the Battersea over in the borough of Wandsworth to watch an opera performed at Testbed1 which is a 7,000 sq ft creative events space located in Battersea.. Now I am usually just the person to go to the Cinema and yes I know that seems boring, but I thought why not check out this new opera called “The Anatomy of Melancholy”.

As you can guess Melancholy is a state of low mood or we could say Depression, so since this is a blog is about caring and mental health, I felt it was worth my time to view this Opera performance.

While I was travelling to the show, I kept thinking at the back of my mind how will this Opera performance describe the form of depression, but before I continue with the review, I think its important to describe a bit about depression.

Depression can affect us all, some get depression worse than others. If someone suffers chronic depression then this can be a serious mental health condition where the person begins to become very sad, hopeless, and unimportant and often is unable to live in a normal way. The person experiences

Loss of interest
Slowness of movement and thinking
Thoughts about hopelessness, suicide and death
Tiredness and lack of energy

In the UK Depression affects 1 in 5 older people. You can get more information about depression from the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

Going back to the Opera performance, as I entered to gain a seat around the stage, I was impressed with the use of lighting, which set the scene very well. I especially admired the use of shadows around the stage. The lighting was done by Joshua Pharo who has done many works across theatre, dance and opera.

The play was written and directed by Finn Beames who is also the founder of bodycorps. We also had OPUS2014 finalist Benjamin Tassie who composed the music for the play and the co-designer being Mayou Tikerioti who has designed many productions in the UK and Greece. The conductor of the play was Tim Murray who has already conducted a series of operas at the Gran Teatro del luceu, Royal Opera House and more.

The Opera centered on the old medical belief of the four humors: disease or ailment being caused by an imbalance in one or other of the four basic bodily liquids, or humors. These being Yellow, Phlegm, Black bile and blood. The Opera singers included

John Lattimore whose new work for autumn 2014 will cover John Adams at ENO.

We also had actors Mark Beesley who sung as a principal solo singer at many major opera houses. We also had Janet Henfrey who has been performing over the last 50 years in many theatres.

Other members of the cast were Donna Lennard who has performed in many opera roles one being alice in Airborne, Dario Dugandzic whose credits include The Dark. Anna Harvey with her roles being “Daughter of the sea” and Maud Millar who made her debut Oliver Knussen’s Trumpets with the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

The style of the opera kept my interest going as I looked for references on how depression affects someone. The actors carried their characters well enough that you at least cared about what happens to them in the play. The opera highlighted not only the difficultly of living with depression, but how it affects families and carers, which was well performed by the Grandmother (Janet Henfrey) and the Profather (Mark Beesley).

The Opera also centered on the use of genetics and renaissance medicine, there was quite a lot to learn about the study into Melancholy.

The performance was also very creative in using different scenes and equipment where inventiveness raised my curiosity about depression, especially with the use of film and equipment where I began to almost focus on several things going on at once.

The music played throughout the opera lent itself to the performance with its eerie sounds, frightening scores and gloomy moods. I must admit I am not one for opera performances and some parts of the play I couldnt understand in one sitting, but nevertheless I really enjoyed the show and would certainly see it again if I have the chance.

You can find out more about “The Anatomy of Melancholy” from their site http://www.bodycorps.org/

World Mental Health day 2014 – #mhday

The Future

On this blog post, I have decided to do a post about World Mental Health Day 2014. Last year on World Mental health day 2013, I visited an event to do with service user involvement in research, which was held over at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

This year I am going to visit around 3 or 4 events in South London and experience how different people celebrate world mental health day 2014.

Please check out the video I made of the events I visited that day.

Going back to my blog post, ever since I have been a carer for someone suffering from schizophrenia, I have always wondered how such a mysterious illness can take the personality away from our loved ones.

I sometimes struggle to work out why my loved one does not understand me as much as she used to. It seems as far as I can remember my loved one seems so different as if there is lack of interest in many things, sometimes she is irritable and other times very withdrawn.

Embed from Getty Images

It feels like I could never understand mental health difficulties and I am sure my loved one struggles to explain how she feels.

I think that perhaps this is one of the reasons why there is a World Mental Health day 2014. The event is to allow others to reflect and think about mental health for the day. We cannot all experience what mental ill health fully means unless we are sufferers, but at least we can all help raise awareness and combat the stigma of mental ill health throughout society.

I feel it does not matter too much if you suffer from bipolar or severe depression, with world mental health day, it is so important to get our voices heard, it is so important to write down our thoughts and feelings so that others can learn from those affected by schizophrenia.

I only hope that as a carer and one that blogs fairly often, that others out there are inspired to blog about mental health. World Mental Health day need not be about depressing others about mental health, the day can also be a celebration of those who are clearly part of society.

Embed from Getty Images

We all go through difficult days and we all hit different levels of mental health. The blur between carers, health professionals and those with lived experience can encompass us all as anyone can be hit by mental health problems.

Society can only gain in the long run when no one is isolated, where no one is stigmatized and where no one ends up developing mental ill health in the first place. With events like World Mental Health Day, we can take that extra step to be aware of our own mental health, we can take that extra step to be aware of others suffering mental health problems.

I feel World Mental Health Day is about coming together and recognising what makes us human, no matter how fragile or strong we all are, we can forget that we are people, we end up forgetting our minds until its too late. We need to use such events as a way to remember that our mental health and emotions play a far bigger role than we ever take notice of.

Let us all celebrate, help raise awareness and use World Mental Health Day to aid us in to becoming healthier people and not only look after ourselves but to stop, reflect and look after others.

Please take some time to check out everyone elses blog posts at http://blogs.psychcentral.com/mental-health-day/

Happy Heads event 2014 review

Welcome back to another of my mental health and wellbeing event reviews. This next event I have been personally involved in helping to arrange with at least some of my ideas.

The event was on the 26th of July 2014 and it was aimed at young people to explore, learn and connect on expressing their views on wellbeing and mental health. The event was held over at the Maudsley Learning Center, which is a venue over in the London borough of Southwark that hosts wellbeing events, meetings and workshops.

I have written a blog post that led up to the Happy Heads event, which can be viewed here.

I have also made a 22 minute video about my visit to the Happy Heads festival. Feel free to watch the video below.

Going back to the blog post how did the event work out on the day? To be honest although I can give my views, I feel it would be great that a young person who attended the event should give their views on how they felt the event went.

My main view of the event was that the event lived up to its expectations and more, but engaging with young people on health and wellbeing cannot be done with just a festival alone, but this festival was a great start and was certainly well attended.

When I arrived for the event, I ended up volunteering to help out at the Timebanking UK stalls. I talked to a few people on what it means to giving your time and skill in order to help others. Infact the Happy Heads event was centered around five themes being

Being Active
Connecting
Giving
Learning
and finally “taking notice”

The Timebanking UK sections was on the “Giving” theme. I got creative in that zone and built one of my main talent in which I can help others. That talent was on computer skills, which was placed in the “Suitcase of Talent”.

The next part of the festival which I visited was the “Being Active” zone, where I spoke to several fitness instructors on the benefits of being active.

Soon I arrived in a colorful and comfortable room facilitated by “IamGreeds”. Feel free to visited his site. Basically the poet was hoping some young people can express what wellbeing means to them using spoken word, which was read out on the free mic session later on at the festival.

Another section I visited was the Mindfull Fun Fair zone, this area was linked to the “Taking Notice” zone. I spoke to the stall holders about why it is so important to be mindful and be aware of how we treat others or how others treat us. The stall holders were from Mindfull, which is an online support, information and advice about mental health and emotional wellbeing aimed at young people.

Another stall holder at the Mindfull Fun Fair zone was representing the “beatbullying” organisation. He gave me a run down on how bullying affects young people and why the beatbullying campaign was set up to tacking bullying.

Soon it wasn’t long before I got my creative energies following and I wandered into the DJ mixing room, which had quite an impressive array of sets placed in the room and excellent DJ equipment. Mixing and scratching the records actually made me feel quite young again.

The music mixing zone was set up by RAW Sounds. Raw Sounds is a programme of creative media sessions for people accessing mental health services. Feel free to visit their site here.

One of the most impressive displays I noticed was actually situated at the basement level of the Maudsley Learning Center. This section was being used by the YoungMinds Vs project. YoungMinds vs has been set up to tackle School stress, bullying, sexual pressure, and lack of jobs for young people. I had a great time talking to teenagers at this particular section of the festival on why they feel mental health and wellbeing awareness is important for many in the community.

There are other videos from the Happy Heads festival which I thought to help advertise, feel free to check out those videos as well.

A Caring Mind

A blog for carers of mental health and cancer

Category Archives: Event reviews

PerPlexUs – MA Applied Imagination Degree Show Review

SHARP Gallery – Hidden Gems Art exhibition

Hear Us December Forum 2014

Review of the Lewisham Mental Health and Wellbeing Day

Edward Adamson Collection Talk at Vout-0-Reenee

Carers Lewisham AGM 2014 Review

London Met Connect – event review #LMetConnect

Review of “The Anatomy of Melancholy”

World Mental Health day 2014 – #mhday

Happy Heads event 2014 review