Mental health & policing

Penny Price, Frank Bruno & Lisa Hale

by guest authors Penny Price & Lisa Hale 

Penny is the Service Manager for Adult Mental Health Services in South Powys. In late September 2018 she and Lisa Hale, manager of Felindre Ward, the inpatient mental health ward at Bronllys Hospital, attended the third national conference on mental health and policing in Cardiff. The annual conference is jointly organised by The National Police Chiefs' Council, The College of Policing, and The Association of Police & Crime Commissioners.

The theme this year was “demand-data-diversity” as these were felt to be the challenges that mental health services would face in the coming years.

Demand:

It is recognised that the demand for policing services is on the increase rapidly where mental health is concerned. The police have raised concerns about responding to people experiencing a mental health crisis which could leave vulnerable people stigmatised and criminalised. They are attempting to ensure that the police services are not inappropriately and over-used as part of the wider mental health systems.

Data:

It is recognised that the day-to-day challenges of the police force are spent finding beds, places of safety and matters relating to patients AWOL (absent without leave) from inpatient services. The current IT systems are not built to harvest this information – they need to find ways of understanding the various kinds of demands being faced.

Diversity:

Those of us from diverse backgrounds are more likely to live with mental health problems because of issues relating to race, sexuality or other protected characteristics. Racial inequality in the application of the Mental Health Act (1983) was one of the main reasons the Prime Minister recommended changes to the Act itself. 

Highlights, day 1

Frank Bruno MBE

In 2003 Frank was diagnosed with bipolar. His well-documented profile put Frank in the public eye, and he used the media attention to help raise the standards of care and to reduce the stigma attached to those living with a mental illness.

In this Q&A session Frank spoke of his experience being detained under the MHA on 3 occasions. He believed the number of officers called to attend was excessive, and felt embarrassed when they turned up at his house with sirens blazing and neighbours’ curtains twitching.

Frank recalls the MHA assessment and feels that he was listened to more by the police than the doctors undertaking the assessment. Once detained and moved to the inpatient unit, Frank felt that he was not listened to and felt over-medicated on medication he felt he did not need. Frank felt that there was a need to improve communication by just spending time with people and talking.

Frank has now been free from all medication for the past 3 years and says that his only medication is attending the gym daily and having a steamer.

Mair Elliot

Mair is a 21 year old inspirational young woman from West Wales. She is a mental health and autism campaigner throughout Wales. Mair described herself as a young patient activist and spoke openly about her experience and the challenges of growing up as a child living with autism and mental illness.

Mair spoke of her disappointment with access to Child & Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and found herself spending many nights in A&E in order to receive the support she and her family needed. On one occasion the police were called due to Mair experiencing a mental health crisis and they conveyed her to the local mental health hospital. Mair asked the police officers if she could stay in the police car rather than go on to the unit. Again, this was due to poor communication between staff and service users.

Neil Laybourn & Jonny Benjamin

Jonny Benjamin was a 20 year old man suffering with suicidal thoughts and poor mental health. He was admitted to a mental health unit and whilst there decided he was going to end his life the following day. Jonny asked to go outside for cigarette, left the hospital grounds and proceeded to Waterloo Bridge, where he sat on the edge contemplating jumping into the river.

Jonny's original #findmike flyer from 2014

Neil Laybourn – a passer-by on his way to work – noticed Jonny and stopped to talk to him. Neil spent 25 minutes talking to Jonny – reassuring him that life can get better. Neil asked Jonny to go for a coffee out of the cold and away from the bridge. Jonny agreed. However, as Jonny came from the bridge – the police attended with sirens blazing and Jonny was arrested, handcuffed and put in the back of the police car.

Jonny reports that the police contacted the inpatient unit and the staff on the unit were unaware that Jonny had been off the ward. He was returned to the unit – detained under MHA, and remained in the unit for the following 3 weeks.

6 years later – Jonny campaigned alongside Rethink the mental health charity to find the stranger on the bridge using the hashtag #findmike. Jonny had no idea who Mike was – it was just a name that came to him. The story went nationwide, with over 38 people coming forward claiming to be Mike, and saying that they had stopped someone from jumping off Waterloo Bridge in January 2008.

Since Jonny and Neil were reunited in 2014, they have campaigned together around suicide prevention and adverse mental health. Their campaign looks #beyondshamebeyondstigma.

Cambridgeshire first response crisis mental health service model

In Cambridgeshire people experiencing a mental health crisis can call NHS 111 Option 2 to seek support. This innovative model is totally reliant on strong and effective partnership, involving NHS services, the Third Sector (MIND) and the police. It is proven that this system reduces demand whilst aiming to provide the right care, at the right time, from the right agency.

The First Response Service in Cambridge provides assessment and support to people in mental health crisis out-of-hours. Working with existing teams, the team focuses on responding to urgent referrals from both the emergency services and NHS 111 Option 2. The team has clinical space based with GPs’ out-of-hours services to ensure co-ordination of care.

The dedicated phone line is staffed by a system-wide coordinator who triages the calls. 

Highlights, day 2: 

The value of joint working and early intervention – mental health emergency care

Yorkshire Ambulance Service has started a journey to make a difference in developing a quality approach for mental health patients. They are doing this by evaluating and measuring front line interventions that support mental health front-facing care.

A team of mental health nurses/practitioners is based in the ambulance crew control room where they triage emergencies. They class this as a single point of access. The mental health practitioner then follows up on the call and actions appropriately.

For example – a 25 year old woman contacted 999, requesting an ambulance due to experiencing suicidal thoughts. The call was triaged to the mental health practitioners who spoke to the woman and completed an initial assessment.

It became clear that there was no requirement for a blue light service as she was not in immediate danger. The mental health practitioner was able to gather information, give advice and have access to the person’s mental health notes. A taxi was then sent to collect the woman so that she was able to attend for assessment by the team.

This approach is successful in reducing unnecessary conveyance, avoidable 136 sections, and associated transport delays.

Improving care, reducing demand

Inspector Huw Griffiths, Mental Health Lead with Hampshire Constabulary, talked about the team he leads. This consists of three police officers who are embedded in the NHS mental health teams.

“Over policing is as bad as over caring, “ is a quote carried forward from the previous year’s conference. Nationally the police service is still seen as the default mental health emergency service in many areas and the first point of call for many people in crisis. Huw’s team has spent the past 5 years trying to change that, ensuring that through partnership working the police do not attempt to carry out the highly skilled role of another agency. This has led to locally to a 45% drop in police mental health deployments along with other areas of significant demand reduction.

****** 

We both found the conference an excellent learning opportunity. We were able to see the point of view from different services of what it is like dealing with mental health crisis. We heard the opinions of the police on mental health services and the impact dealing with crisis has on a workforce that is not equipped to deal with the complexity of cases. It was so interesting to listen to the personal accounts of their involvement with services during a crisis.

The service users’ and relatives’ accounts of their experiences were the most powerful, however. And, finally, the discussion forums we attended inspired us to look at our own service to see how we can make improvements.

Dyfed Powys Police - Powys Partnerships

Rhiannon (far right)  with colleagues at the recent 2018 mental health conference

This week our guest author is Chief Inspector Rhiannon Ivens of Dyfed Powys Police.

Chief Inspector Rhiannon Ivens has served in both Hampshire Constabulary and the Metropolitan Police service and performed the role of Chief Inspector Operations for several years prior to taking up her role as a substantive Chief Inspector with Dyfed-Powys Police.

I was appointed by Chief Constable Mark Collins on the 10th April 2017 as Chief Inspector and am responsible for Partnerships in Powys. I have a significant amount of experience in this field and am keen to support existing partnerships in addition to creating an environment whereby working together with other agencies and stakeholders is as seamless and effective as possible to achieve excellent outcomes for the residents and visitors to the county. 

On 1st March 2018 at Police Headquarters in Carmarthen, the Police & Crime Commissioner and Chief Constable hosted their second annual Dyfed Powys St David’s Day Conference. I was honoured to be involved in arranging this event which was enjoyed by many.

The focus of this years’ event was Mental Health.

Chief Constable Mark Collins took up his role as national lead for mental health in January 2017 and is committed to learning from the experiences of those living with mental ill-health, people external to policing, and from those within the service itself.

Despite the snowy weather conditions so many people and partners joined us on the day with an audience of 80 - 90 people present, including partners from mental health services in Powys Teaching Health Board. This goes to show that so many people cared deeply about being there and the subject of mental health. 

Police and Crime Commissioner Dafydd Llewellyn opened the event (above).

Guest speakers from different fields gave presentations and answered questions from the floor. They included:

Inspector Michael Brown OBE, who works with the College of Policing and National Police Chiefs' Council and is the author of the Mental Health Cop blog (below).

John Williams (below) is a Professor of Law at Aberystwyth University, and has presented papers at numerous conferences including the International Academy of Law and Mental Health.

Tony Herbert, whose son died in police custody in Somerset in 2010.

Social justice, and the way that we treat people with mental health issues, have been important to Mr Herbert even before James’s tragic death. 

Tony Herbert

“Mental health demand is rising not just in policing but across our whole emergency system and in society as a whole. Much of policing and mental health is not about major crisis incidents or serious adverse events; it is about the daily challenge of quietly responding to vulnerable people, often collaboratively. Today’s conference has been a great opportunity to share stories and learning but also encourage attendees to think creatively about how, in our respective roles, we can get better at early intervention.”

“I am very happy with the success of the second Annual St David’s Day Conference. Having a focus on mental health provided local organisations, partner agencies and Dyfed Powys Police itself with an opportunity to discuss and debate on a very important topic.”

The conference was instrumental in supporting the police and our partners to provide the best possible service to those suffering with mental illness. More recent improvements, increased awareness, understanding and compassion for service users has led to many incidences of positive intervention and our commitment to further progress is cemented by our Force Mental Health Strategy and Delivery Plan moving forward.

I received a lot of positive feedback from the event and it was encouraging to know that attendees have pledged a commitment to improving and raising awareness of how to deal with mental health.

Some examples below:

“I will read up more of the roles different agencies play in supporting mental health sufferers to enable better signposting if and when we encounter the issue.”

“I will discuss with clients their experience of police involvement in times of crisis highlighting positive and negative points.”

“I will feedback to the organisation the positive comments I’ve heard here today and include pointers from speakers in my presentations with Time to Change Wales on stigma and discrimination towards mental health.”

“I will promote positive mental health and ensure my staff and I receive relevant training.”

Police and Crime Commissioner Dafydd Llywelyn said:

"It was a pleasure to work alongside the Police and Crime Commissioners staff and police staff who all worked really hard to ensure this was a successful event."

Thank you for the opportunity to provide a bit of an update of my recent work regarding mental health and I look forward to continuing this work with fantastic partners in and around Powys and in Powys Teaching Health Board.

Many thanks to Rhiannon for telling us all about the mental health conference which took place last month - really appreciate it especially as we were snowed in here in North Powys!

If you have any questions about mental health in relation to policing that you would like to ask Rhiannon, please post them in the comments box below. We love to hear from you.

Finally, those featured in the photo at the top are as follows:

Brieg Dafydd & Mair Harries - Office of the Police & Crime Commissioner, Sharon Reynolds - Corporate Communications, Michael Henry - Staff Officer to Chief Constable Mark Collins, and Chief Inspector Rhiannon Ivens.

Active Monitoring - Mind working with Powys GPs

Just last month at the PAVO Conference, which focused on Prevention and Early Intervention, we found out more about a new initiative at Brecon and District Mind when Service Director Val Walker spoke at the Mental Health Conversation. Active Monitoring provides support to people who visit their GP with symptoms of common emotional health needs including stress, anxiety and depression. The service aims to increase wellbeing, self-esteem and confidence, and reduce the likelihood of needing to access further support relating to a person's emotional wellbeing.

The mental health charity Mind describes Active Monitoring as: "a psycho-educational programme designed to provide early intervention provision within the Primary Care arena. With growing demands on Therapeutic Services resulting in increasing waiting lists it is getting more difficult for people to access the help they need in time. This role involves working directly from a GP surgery delivering the Active Monitoring programme. The service complements/replaces the ‘watchful waiting function’ and proactively works with individuals on agreed pathways to support early intervention via a facilitated self-help model."

Elizabeth Bogunovic

Brecon & District Mind works closely with the GP cluster in South Powys and Red Kite Health Solutions CIC (Community Interest Company) to deliver the Active Monitoring service.

Elizabeth Bogunovic is the Mind Active Monitoring Practitioner delivering the service for Brecon & District Mind, and she tells us more about this innovative way of working:

It was when I began volunteering for Merthyr and the Valleys Mind that I became aware of a service called Active Monitoring. The more I heard about it, the more intrigued I became so I sat down with Nicola, one of their practitioners, who explained to me the ethos behind the product so to speak. From that point on I was passionate about the possibilities an early intervention, self help service could offer people and considered the time a few years ago I found myself stuck in my own ‘mental health mess’, and how it may have changed the course I took at that time. I am convinced it would have helped me to recover a lot quicker than I eventually did.

Now I am delighted to be the Wellness Practitioner delivering the service for Brecon and District Mind, based at the Haygarth Surgeries which cover the areas of Hay-on-Wye, Talgarth and rural villages around here. I have been part of the Brecon Team since August 16th where I began by getting to know the area, the people and the surgery set-up, before heading off to Oldham to have some excellent training from Mind which fully prepared me to begin working with patients on September 8th.

The Active Monitoring Service consists of an initial ‘drop-in’ session where I meet the patient referred to me by the clinical team for a brief fifteen minutes and then, a further five more sessions. During the time they spend with me, they complete the GAD7, PHQ9 and Warwick Edinburgh Wellness evaluations at the beginning, middle and end, and choose one of six workbooks or pathways to engage with. These workbooks focus on Managing Anger, Anxiety & Panic Attacks, Stress, Low Self Esteem, Depression and Feeling Alone. To complement these workbooks, I have at my disposal a selection of exercise sheets they can work with and some smaller booklets to help them. The initial feedback I am receiving is on the whole excellent and very positive.

The last few months seem to have flown by and I was surprised to notice today how many of my first patients have had their last sessions with me over recent weeks! It only seems like yesterday I sat with them, full of anticipation both for them and me, describing the service and inviting them to engage in it. I was delighted for one patient at our third session when she completed the same evaluations she did at her first drop in session to see a slight improvement, I remember feeling her pleasure almost as my own!

So far I have worked with 48 people -  all at different points of their journey through the service - many of whom tell me how much more aware of their feelings and emotions they are since starting work with me. This not only gives me some validation that Active Monitoring ‘works’ but an immense sense of achievement when someone starts to notice a change in themselves.

I have amazing support from the staff here at Haygarth, it feels almost like being part of a big extended family which makes it a pleasure to come to what is called work but what I prefer to call ‘doing something I love with financial reward’. Even more than that I am lucky to be part of the team at Brecon & District Mind who also feel passionately that Active Monitoring has the potential to offer people an alternative approach to mental health matters, one that really can make a difference in a person's life.

Brecon & District Mind believes that early Interventions are far more effective than waiting, and that prevention is better than allowing things to linger. "We want people to get help immediately rather than wait to get help, or for things to get worse". 

You can find out more about the Active Monitoring project on the Brecon and District Mind website. Contact Elizabeth by ringing 01874 611529 or email: activemonitoring@breconmind.org.uk

Prevention & Early Intervention - the mental health conversation

The mental health conversation; PAVO's CEO Carl Cooper; Jane & Jackie PAVO mental health team

Last Tuesday 8 November I attended the PAVO AGM and Conference at Cefn Lea Conference Centre near Newtown along with colleagues and respresentatives from voluntary sector groups, the statutory sector, and numerous other individuals. The theme this year was: Prevention & Early Intervention - the Third Sector role in Powys.

The conference invitation stated: "It is widely acknowledged that Third Sector organisations and services have an essential role to play in prevention and early intervention. This conference will explore how these services could be an integral part of a common direction in Powys".

Carl Cooper, our PAVO CEO, opened the conference by saying: "We are delighted to have this as our theme. It is important particularly in light of the Social Services and Wellbeing (Wales) Act which highlights that support and care should be provided at an early stage to those requiring it to prevent worse things happening later in life's journey. The Third Sector has a crucial role to play in that." 

Carl then introduced the first speaker, Dylan Owen, the Head of Social Care Transformation at Powys County Council.

Dylan explained that the Early Intervention and Prevention agenda is driving council services forward to make sure that people's wellbeing is supported in the community. This includes working to support people to re-engage with their communities, and to do what matters to them.

In the past social care planning has followed a path of assessment - providing care - looking at the deficits and weaknesses - and solving problems. Now this approach is being turned on its head, with a duty to support people to make their own decisions. 

Dylan described how the council is already working closely with the PAVO Third Sector Brokers to find alternatives to help people to live independently. Isolation and loneliness are often the first step to becoming dependent on social care services, and other initiatives, such as the Powys Befrienders project, where paid co-ordinators work with trained volunteers across Powys to support people to engage with their communities, (ideally in their own language), have also proved very successful.

Community Wellbeing Co-ordinators and Home Based Support, working from community hubs, were other key services also covered in Dylan's presentation.

Next up was Stuart Bourne, Assistant Director of Public Health at Powys Teaching Health Board.

Stuart referred extensively to the Health Board's Integrated Medium Term Plan (IMTP) which sets out the health priorities for Powys up until 2018 (it is discussed in more detail in our March post Engaging with PTHB to shape future services). The IMTP contains many elements of early intervention and prevention, including approaches which benefit from joint working with the Third Sector.

Stuart emphasised the impact of quick and easy early intervention by referring to "the 30 second chat that can trigger weight loss" as recently reported widely following a University of Oxford trial. Here at PAVO we are already familiar with initiatives such as The Five Ways to Wellbeing and Making Every Contact Count.

The formal presentations were followed by 10 "conversation" groups, of which Mental Health & Wellbeing was one. Jane from our team facilitated, with support from Val Walker of Brecon & District Mind. Those who signed up included Third Sector organisations such as Hafal, Cymryd Rhan, Hay Day Cafe and Ponthafren Association, individuals who have been in contact with mental health services, carers and employees of PTHB. 

The mental health "conversation" gets underway at the PAVO Conference

The group was asked to consider some key questions as part of a larger discussion around the conference theme, including: What will this new approach to Prevention and Early Intervention mean for our organisations and the services we provide?

Some interesting points and questions were raised. There is not the space to outline them all, but here are a few to give a flavour of the session:

• If people have dementia then making cognitive decisions about their future care could be stressful. How would this be handled?
• People want safety and security, particularly as they grow older. Not all people will wish to stay in their own homes. There needs to be a broad range of options made available.
• Community based means person-centred. Learn from the Third Sector who have been working this way for years.
• A lot of community services are being closed down and there is a huge dependence on volunteers. Where is the money coming from to support this volunteering?

It was clear from the conversation that there is a gap in services before people who are distressed seek support around mental health from their GP. What does that look like? Is it more than an Information Service? Is it an additional specific role, and if so doing what?

There is also a huge issue because of the waiting lists for talking therapies in Powys. In many ways talking to someone is a form of early intervention, but if we cannot meet the demand currently what can we do differently?

Good practice around early intervention was identified in pockets around Powys and all agreed that it would be excellent if such activities could be rolled out throughout the rest of the county. We found out a little more about one particular project.

The Active Monitoring project being run by Brecon & District Mind

Val updated us on the progress of this new service which operates out of Hay and Talgarth GP surgeries, and is a joint project between the GPs in that area and Brecon & District Mind. This early intervention service will mean that the practice clinical team are able to refer anyone with symptoms of anxiety, depression, low self-esteem or stress directly to a Mind Practitioner in the surgery to be seen straight away.

To date 29 people have been seen by the Brecon Mind Practitioner in the first 6 weeks of the project. They have progressed through five sessions and the results show a definite improvement in their state of wellbeing. Others have been signposted to other organisations such as Cruse, the bereavement charity, for ongoing support. Val believed further signposting should be instigated so that the massive waiting lists for talking therapies could be addressed.

Active Monitoring is popular in other parts of Wales, including Merthyr Tydfil, and started in North-West England where it is now embedded in Primary Care services after being rolled out in 47 surgeries.

Val Walker, Service Director, Brecon & District Mind

We also heard about a relatively new Hafal pilot project in Bridgend and Swansea "to provide early intervention services to service users and families, focusing on the direct needs of young people (14 - 35) experiencing a first episode of psychosis". Referrals are made by the Community Mental Health Team and picked up by one of three part-time Hafal workers. The staff support individuals through a programme with a view to move on to community engagement or further education using Hafal’s Recovery Programme as the basis for doing this.

Jane summarised the key point to feed back to the conference

We had to pick one key point from the mental health conversation to feed back to the conference. Impossible! We had loads! Eventually we narrowed them down to three as a group, and magically Jane managed to merge them as one!

• A lot more work is required in consultation with the Third Sector.
• Communication is massive.
• A better understanding of mental health is required by all. It needs to be normalised.

If you were not able to attend the PAVO Conference this year, what would you have liked to add to our mental health conversation on Early Intervention and Prevention? Let us know in the comments box below, we always love hearing from our readers.

Adrian Osbourne is Assistant Director, Engagement & Communication, at Powys Teaching Health Board. Read his Twitter Storify summary of the day.

Unconventional Wisdom: Shaping Services Together Conference, Powys, September 2013 - Adding To The Debate?

2013 Conference Theme: Shaping Mental Health Services Participation

In September 2013, Powys Association of Voluntary Organisations  (PAVO) were involved in running a conference in Powys, one of three events across Wales (you can access all three conference reports here).  The event was funded by Public Health Wales and supported by Welsh Government.  The theme was mental health participation.

PAVO lead on the Powys Stronger in Partnership Participation Network and we are a member of Mental Health Action Wales.  You can find out more about the activities we are involved in and the difference we think we are making here.

You can read a full report (12 pages) from the 2013 Shaping Services Together Conference, Powys, on our website here.  In this blog though I wanted to explain a bit about the ideas underpinning the conference planning in 2013.  I also want to tell you about another free conference that you are invited to on Friday 7th March 2014.
 

Learning From Previous Conferences ...

We first ran an event of this kind (i.e. national participation) in 2012, you can watch a video from this event here and read the conference report here.   Eleanor Longden spoke at this event and her talk continued the debate in Powys that challenges the conventional wisdom underpinning our mental health system.  A wisdom that is founded on the idea of "mental illness". You can read more about this debate in my previous blogs here and you can watch Eleanor talk on ted.com in this link.  

Eleanor Longden is joining us again on 7th March 2014, you can find out more about this here.

 

Thanks to people's willingness to get involved in the 2012 conference and to the feedback we received we were able to learn a lot from this event. 

We used this learning to help us to underpin the  2013 conference planning on two questions:

 

“Should mental health services be shaped by the question what happened to you rather than what’s wrong with you?”  

 

"If so, how can mental health participation influence such a fundamental change to our mainstream mental health services?"

 

As well as asking us to provide more opportunities to explore the de-medicalisation of distress, you also told us that future conferences should include:

"...time for exceptional and inspirational speakers that bring to the debate their own experience of mental distress"

 

... no pressure then! 
 

So A Big Thank You To Jacqui Dillon...

 

Given this we were absolutely delighted when Jacqui Dillon agreed to come to Powys and talk at this conference.  We think that she fitted the bill and luckily you don't have to take my word for it,  you can watch her full talk here.

“Jacqui Dillon is one of the most inspirational speakers I have ever met, thank you for enabling me to be part of today"

Jacqui Dillon is a writer, campaigner, international speaker and trainer.  She is the National Chair in England of the international Hearing Voices Network.  Her talk was entitled "The Personal is Political" and you can download the slides here. 

She began by sharing something of her own story, her experiences and her survival strategies.  Survival strategies such as self-harm, hearing voices, eating "disorder", creativity and resourcefulness.  Survival strategies that are often judged by mainstream wisdom as "symptoms" of "mental illness" rather than a natural and normal response to difficult life experiences.

She then shared her own experience of mental health services which she summarised against 6 themes:

• Pathologised:  "You are ill. Everything that you say and do will be seen as a consequence of your illness."
• Denial:  ‘It never happened’ or ‘It did happen but you will never recover’.
• Medication:  ‘You are resistant and the fact that you don’t want to take medication is evidence that you are ill’ .
• Dependency & Compliance: ‘You must accept the psychiatric diagnosis and medication and we will give you benefits and a bus pass’. 
• Disempowered: ‘You will never recover. You will always have this illness. You won’t be able to work’.
• Passive:  ‘You do not know what is best for you. We know what is best for you’. her own experience of mental distress

Then she talked about finding a new paradigm, which she broke down into 4 main areas:

• 
  Trauma & Recovery
• Understanding Dissociation
• Attachment Theory
• The Personal Is Political 

She shared some of the latest research findings around childhood adversity & psychosis, for example:

• People abused as children are 9.3 times more likely to develop "psychosis"; for those suffering the severest kinds of abuse, the risk rises to 48 times (Janssen et al., 2004).
• People who have endured three kinds of abuse (e.g., sexual, physical, bullying) are at 18-fold higher risk of psychosis, whereas those experiencing five types are 193 more likely to become psychotic (Shevlin et al., 2007).
• People with "psychosis" are three times more likely to have experienced childhood sexual abuse (CSA) than those with other diagnoses, and 15 times more likely to have been abused than non-patients (Bebbington et al., 2004).

She ended her talk by suggesting some answers to the question:  "What is to be done?".  Her ideas can be read in detail on the slides from her talk available here.

I highly recommend watching her talk (just over an hour).  So far over 1,000 people have viewed it and the feedback, not only from the conference but also from people who have watched her talk on youtube, has been incredibly positive.

 Further Information and Videos From Shaping Services Together 2013

Jo Mussen, Vice Chair of Powys Teaching Health Board and their Lead for Mental Health, Chaired the morning, as part of her conference introductions which included a thought provoking reading from the Robert Whitaker book,  Anatomy of an Epidemic.  The extract was entitled “A Modern Plague” and it can be read here

Sian Richards, Welsh Government Strategy Lead, National Mental Health Partnership Board, alongside other partnership members, and David Crepaz-Keay, Head of Empowerment and Social Inclusion, Mental Health Foundation, talked next presenting us with a presentation entitled “Together for Mental Health” that provided the latest information about: 

• The National Mental Health Partnership Board


•  Developing a National Forum for strategic participation in national and local mental health partnership boards 

You can listen to this in full (36 minutes) here.
 
Powys Youth Forum and Clwyd Theatr Cymru developed, planned, led and ran a participatory workshop on the theme: “Wisdom Across All Ages”.  This helped us to begin to explore participation for people of all ages.
 
You can find out more about the conference and read a full conference report (12 pages) here.

Unconventional Wisdom:  The Debate Continues 7th March 2014

Free Conference:  Wales Early Intervention Service Conference:  Finding Meaning in "Psychosis"?

Friday 7th March 2014.  The Pavilion, Llandrindod Wells Powys.  9.30 am for refreshments.  Finish 4.30 pm.   

 

Another chance to join us and find out more about the debate that challenges the conventional wisdom and to explore the question:  “Should mental health services be underpinned by the question what happened to you rather than the question what is wrong with you?”. 

 

Speakers Are:

 

Euan Hails - Clinical Lead Psychosis Services, Hywel Dda Health Board.  Bio to follow.  But to find out more about his work click here.

 

Eleanor Longden - an award-winning postgraduate researcher with a specialist interest in psychosis, trauma, and dissociation. She is a three times TED speaker, a trustee of Intervoice: The International Network for Training, Education, and Research into Hearing Voices and Soteria Network UK, and has lectured and published internationally on promoting creative, person-centred approaches to understanding and recovering from psychosis.  More here.

 

Dr Lucy Johnstone - consultant clinical psychologist and the author of 'Users and abusers of psychiatry' (2nd edition Routledge 2000) and co-editor of 'Formulation in psychology and psychotherapy: making sense of people's problems' (2nd edition Routledge 2013) along with a number of other publications taking a critical perspective on mental health theory and practice.   More here

 

Dr Sami Timimi - Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist and Director of Medical Education in the National Health Service in Lincolnshire and a Visiting Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Lincoln, UK. He writes from a critical psychiatry perspective on topics relating to mental health and has published over a hundred articles and tens of chapters on many subjects including childhood, psychotherapy, behavioural disorders and cross-cultural psychiatry.  More here.

 

This conference is an opportunity to explore:

• how we understand and make sense of these “psychotic” experiences
• best practice in early intervention responses that help people and those close to them cope with these experiences, learn from them and thrive
• the interactions, treatments and ideas that make a positive difference to people’s lives and how we make sure that these are offered with openness and transparency
• interventions and treatments that early intervention services could deliver and how they might continue to develop

Interested in joining us?  To find out more about this conference and to get more detail about how to book, click here or contact the team on pamhinfo@pavo.org.uk, telephone 01686 628 300.