July's Meeting

Dear Friends,

We had a nice and cozy meeting this week as a consequence of the ever changing weather conditions and the Autumn-like pouring.

Present: David K, Myra, Pia, Martin, Sergio, Brian, Nat.
Apologies from Sarah, Eamer and Sheila.

Here the highlights of the meeting:

-The SPEAK OUT AGAINST PSYCHIATRY protest was discussed and most of the present confirmed attendance. It was raised the question of why it has been picked the RCP and not the Institute of Psychiatry. Maybe that will be the next one?
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=211203888908921

-On Saturday the 23rd there will be a banner making session at LARC to prepare for next week protest. Anyone that is willing to give an extra hand or has got some suggestions to offer, please come along from 6pm.

-Cooltan Arts to host a film premiere of a documentary on Wed the 20th.
I have participated to the event and it had a well attended reception.
Mad Culture portrayed with its originality and brilliance :)


-Cooltan Arts to hold their monthly Largactyl Shuffle Legacy Walk. Meeting at 12pm at the entrance of the Hackney Museum. If you can't find the walkers on the day, call CoolTan on 07985658443
The walk is organised as part of this year's London2012 Open Weekend http://www.london2012.com/open-weekend. Supported by the Centre for Better Health.

-Back on the theme of protests, David suggested to make some planning for the agitprop to hold by the ELNHSFT (mental health trust) on occasion of the AGM on 15th Sept. After a little discussion on the acronyms the conversation there has been a very good brainstorm on actions that can be taken in order to stress more and more what SU want and need when being treated. The Trust can be lobbied and participants of next week Speak Out could be invited.

-David discussed the plan for the event on November 18th "Stigma & Racism in mental health". He has invited Ronald Littlewood Professor of Anthropology and Psychiatry Department of Anthropology and Department of Mental Health Sciences, University College, London. Co-author of the book  Alien and Alienists.
We should still have plenty of time to plan this event.

-We had a wonderful contribution from Pia, which shared how she finally managed to change her consultant, as she wished, after a very long struggle. Politics go that a consultant is attached to a specific GP and the only chance patients have to choose a different specialist is if they change their GP. Some consultants even have the monopoly of entire surgeries (Pia had to skim five GP surgeries before finding one that is serviced by a different consultant than her former one). How's that possible?

Change of consultant is a recurrent problem that SU face. Very often personality clashes or just the over patronising, controlling and authoritarian attitude of some shrinks, cause unnecessary frustration, hostility and anger in already vulnerable people.
The result is conveniently used by the professionals to write on paper that the person is unwell and needs assistance because of unsound mind. Rights of opinion of the patients are not respected, neither considered.

Is this a way to treat or cure people or all they aim to, and have fun in doing it, is to trigger more frustration in patients?

Do you? Can you? Could you take it?
I don't! Specially when these people are being paid to see us, spending time uselessly.
Well done Pia!

-We recently had some mails from medical students that wish to interview SU. I suggested we invite them to our August meeting, so if anyone is willing to answer some questions or arrange an appointment get ready for it.

-Brian also raised the issue if professionals should or not be members and participate to our meetings.
Mixed feelings was the result after the conversation.

-Core Arts is exhibiting a SU collection "Forget Who You Are" at The V&A Museum of Childhood, in Bethnal Green.
The works explore how experiences from childhood can have a lasting influence on adult creativity and artistic practice. The artists, poets and musicians used imaginary worlds and unusual scales to explore their own childhoods.The exhibition will run untill the 16th October.

-The next meeting of the Survivors History Group will be on Wednesday 27.7.2011 at the Together office, 12 Old Street, London, EC1V 9BE. Since the "Speak Out Against Psychiatry" clashes on the same day and several people want to go to both the SHG  meeting will start at 12pm. At about 2.30pm there will be a food break. Those who wish to go to Belgrave Square will have time to eat before they leave. It takes 45min to reach the RCP.
Frank Bangay will conduct people across London. At 3.15pm, the Survivors History Group will re-convene for those who wish to remain.


Fingers crossed next Wed the 27th will be a nice and sunny day.
Get you placards ready and be prepared for a day to remember.

SPEAK OUT AGAINST PSYCHIATRY

 PRESS RELEASE 

Subject: Protest - Speak Out Against Psychiatry
Venue: Outside Royal College of Psychiatry - 17 Belgrave Square, London, SW1X 8PG.
Date: 4 – 6pm on Wednsday the 27th July 2011
Contact: John Hoggett – 0118 941 5144, speakoutagainstpsychiatry@gmail.com

 
PROTESTERS GATHER OUTSITE THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PSYCHIATRISTS

A group called, Speak Out Against Psychiatry are organising a protest outside the Royal College of Psychiatrists between 4pm and 6pm on the 27th July. They believe that psychiatry causes more harm than good and they are inviting people to come and tell their stories of how psychiatry has badly effected their lives.

Speak Out Against Psychiatry believe that the care of severely mentally distressed people is a disgrace. On the whole people get diagnosis, drugs and if they live in the community, what is often a patronising chat with a social worker once a fortnight. This often results in people being pensioned off for life, living a life of drug numbed misery. From the beginning of the development of modern medication it has been known that although the drugs often quieten symptoms, as they are major tranquillisers they flatten all emotions, they also make it less likely that people will recover.(1)

What people who are mentally distressed need is compassionate understanding and intense social support. Sadly this is far too often lacking in the present medication based system which is strongly influenced by multi-national drug company lobbying rather than research into what actually works.

There have been many small experiments and successful units around the world that have helped people experiencing extreme mental distress resolve their problems with either low use of medication or not using any medication at all. These have often proved to be cheaper than conventional treatments offered by mainstream psychiatry. Yet they have not been taken up.

One example is the Open Dialogue method used in Western Lapland in Finland. They have the best outcomes in for first episode psychosis in the world, with about 80% of participants being back at work or training within two years. Only a third of participants ever use medication and only a fifth are on medication after five years. These results should be the envy of the developed world yet it is mainly ignored. (2) (3)

Electro-Convulsive Therapy is still used, although many people think it has been banned. There being ample research to show it is dangerous and just about useless. It causes brain damage and memory loss and any improvement in symptoms goes after a few weeks. People who are severely depressed need a lot of care and understanding yet time and again this is not found in psychiatric hospitals. (4)

Psychiatrists main activity is diagnosis, yet most service users do not find diagnosis helpful. What they do find helpful is talking to people about their lives and their symptoms yet psychiatric training can stop staff talking to people about their experiences. They are actively discouraged about talking about the voices that people diagnosed with schizophrenia often experience yet this has been shown to be helpful.

Most people who have extreme distress ha ve experienced immense personal trauma such as surviving child sexual assault or family violence. This is true for most diagnosis, yet psychiatrists ignore the evidence and prefer to talk about unproven brain disorders and imbalances in neurotransmitters. In one study two-thirds of people diagnosed with schizophrenia had suffered physical or sexual abuse, yet mainstream psychiatry ignores this, or if they do enquire they have little idea of how to help people. This does society a disservice as by ignoring the causes of mental distress as they are not prevented in future generations by feeding into other areas of social policy. (5)

There is a rising number of children that are being dangerously diagnosed and drugged for behavioural problems with absolutely no attempt to find out why they are behaving in a distressing manner. Diseases like ADHD have no scientific basis and drugs like Ritalin are known to cause problems in children. There are other ways of helping children with behavioural problems and the parents and teachers who are struggling with the children in their care that do not use dangerous and potentially addictive medication, yet they are not commonly used in the drug company dominated NHS(6)

Recently there has been the scandal of elderly people drugged up on anti-psychotics because nursing staff either did not have the skills to deal with people experiencing dementia or because of under-staffing. (7)

The skills people needed to help people who are mentally distressed are not on the whole taught in psychiatric colleges. While we recognise that some practitioners are doing excellent work, and there are some outstanding units in the NHS mental health service the common practices and mainstream culture of psychiatry is a mess.

Founder member of Speak Out Against Psychiatry, John Hoggett, became concerned about the dangers and inadequacies of psychiatry over twenty years ago when he befriended a young man who had a diagnosis of schizophrenia. His friend was on two and a half times the recommended dose of an injected tranquillizer called Haloperidol and yet he was still hallucinating and very disturbed. He saw a nurse once a fortnight for his injection but otherwise had little contact with services yet he was barely coping in the community. The drugs had serious side effects and had little, if any, benefit. He had been living like this for years and wanted to come off his medication.

His friend wanted psychotherapy but his psychiatrist was mocking of the idea yet Mr Hoggett found that using some simple counselling skills he had learnt on a phone line training event helped his friend considerably.

His friend came off his medication suddenly because he hated the effects. He then had a relapse and was detained under the mental health act. Mr Hoggett thinks that with proper advice on coming of the medication and with adequate psychological help his friend was likely to have avoided the relapse.

Recently Mr Hoggett accompanied another friend with multiple diagnosis, including schizophrenia, to see his psychiatrist to ask for psycho-therapy. He was told that the therapists in Berkshire NHS Healthcare Trust do not like providing therapy for people who have experienced psychosis as, “It could make it worse”. As there is an International Society for the Psychological Treatment of Schizophrenia and other Psychosis who list about one hundred books on the subject on their website he can only assume that the local therapists are badly trained. So he helped his friend find therapy through a voluntary agency on an IAPT contract (IAPT – individual access to psychological therapies). The voluntary agency said they did not treat people who had experienced psychosis but Mr Hoggett's friend had several other diagnosis he could use, and so he got the help he wanted, which he found extremely useful, unlike anything provided by Berkshire Healthcare NHS Trust. (8)

Another of the founding members worked as an advocate for people detained under the mental health act. He noticed that psychiatrists generally made no attempt to understand what the patients were going through, preferring instead to explain their experiences as symptoms of an illness that would go away once the they agreed to comply with medication. Once patients were admitted to the hospital, they often became angry at having their freedom taken away, and frightened by the enormous power that professionals suddenly held over them. This fear and anger was always attributed to the “symptoms” of their illness, rather than to the frightening situation that they found themselves in.

1. Investigative journalist, Robert Whittaker's site, Mad in America, about the dangers and limits of psychiatric medication: http://www.madinamerica.com/madinamerica.com/
Mad%20in%20America.html

2. Article on Open Dialogue: http://bipolarblast.wordpress.com/2010/01/04/alternative-for-psychosis/

3. Account of Open Dialogue: http://bipolarblast.wordpress.com/emptypsychbeds/

4. Article on Electro-Convulsive Therapy: http://www.criticalpsychiatry.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=201:research-review-finds-electro-shock-therapy-cannot-be-scientifically-justified&catid=38:news&Itemid=55

5. Oliver James article in The Guardian on personal trauma links to extreme mental distress: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2005/oct/22/health.socialcare

6. Article on ADHD and stimulants: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/25/children.health

7. Article on elderly people prescribed anti-psychotics: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6264962/Scandalous-abuse-of-the-elderly-prescribed-antipsychotics-in-hospital-exposed.html

8. International Society for the Psychological Treatment of Schizophrenia and other Psychosis -http://www.isps.org/

Visit the event page on Facebook

July Newsletter.

Dear Friends,

Welcome to FEEL's July Newsletter. You will find a few nice and interesting dates for your diary for this month and beyond: from art exhibition, film premiere to a chance and right to protest at the Royal College of Psychiatry in London.

As always our wish is that services for the mental health sufferers will improve to the standards that people individually need, not to some "fits for all, fix them all" that some professional conveniently find and use.

The protest SPEAK OUT AGAINST PSYCHIATRY on 27th July will give a chance to SU to speak and soften the patronising role that majority of professionals have been leading up to today. Mistaking individuality of patients for some form of illness, the obvious failing of bringing people to a state of normality has only wasted lives and resources in most of cases, leaving an army of disempowered & dis-abled, while the enriched parmaceuthical companies BUY their leading seat in the mental health ladder.


Join us for our next monthly FEEL event, happening next Monday the 18th of July to discuss this and other matters. The agenda will be worked out on arrival: if you have any concern that you wish to be discussed we'll make sure to dedicate some time to it.

Quest for Personalised Health

Interesting Article on the Journal of Chinese Medicine
There is still lot of skepticism about ancient Oriental philosophies and remedies in majority of population, but this is simply due to pure ignorance of both Western professionals and their patients. As more and more people are experimenting alternatives to conventional medicine, I am confident that Eastern methods of healing will find the way to be appreciated as they should all around the globe.

Quest for Personalised Health: Exploring the Emergent Interface of East Asian Medicines and Modern System Sciences  13/06/2011  

A cutting edge 'Quest for Personalised Health: Exploring the Emergent Interface of East Asian Medicines and Modern System Sciences' conference took place in London over the weekend. Organised by Volker Scheid with Bridie Andrews and Jan van der Greef, it brought together systems biologists, physicists, sinologists and Chinese medicine researchers and practitioners. The speakers were top drawer - Prof. Denis Noble (Professor Emeritus and co-Director of Computational Physiology), Nathan Sivin (Professor Emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania) and Prof. Andrew Pickering plus a host of experts in systems sciences, Chinese medicine and the interface between them.
    In what was at times a confusingly disparate two days, one main theme seemed to emerge, and that was how best to handle complexity. The early excitement surrounding the genome project was based on the expectation that having identified the 30000 genes in human DNA, manipulation of individual genes would lead to dramatic new solutions for human disease. It is now apparent that this reductionist approach simply isn't working, and that it is the interaction of genes within the human organism, mediated by higher level systems and a host of environmental factors, that determines health and disease. The attempt to track the complex way this entire system functions has led to overwhelmingly indigestible amounts of data. Concurrently, the pharmaceutical industry has hit a wall with fewer and fewer new drugs produced  at ever greater cost. The single bullet approach appears to be nearing the end of its useful life at the same time as it becomes apparent that it delivers less than it has claimed. If reductionism is therefore too limited, and complexity too overwhelming, how can medicine move forward?
    One answer may be to learn from Chinese medicine - as long as it is approached with respect and an open mind. One key feature of Chinese medicine - at the level of best practice - has been its skill in managing complexity. Traditional diagnosis incorporates a wide array of information beyond the relatively narrow confines of disease category whilst the medicine - especially herbal medicine - handles an array of complex prescriptions, each composed of  several complex ingredients combining synergistically, often in known ways. How does it cope?
    First, Chinese medicine is characterised by the recognition that there may be a variety of possible solutions to the same problem. Different doctors are much more likely to prescribe different prescriptions of herbs or acupuncture points for the same patient than they are to come up with identical prescriptions, and yet although it is recognised that some solutions are likely to be more effective than others, there is no one single 'right' way to respond to an individual patient.
    Secondly, Chinese medicine is able to flexibly interweave treatment at the level of the disease, the presenting pattern and the individual, thus spanning a range from the more reductionist to the more complex and variable. It is perhaps the pattern recognition aspect that offers the most to systems sciences, and fascinating work is being done on exactly this by those such as Professor Jan van der Greef and Jan Schroen from the Sino-Dutch Research Centre for Preventive and Personalized Medicine, both of whom presented at this conference. Pattern differentiation can be seen as the integrating factor between the relative reductionism of disease identification and the relative complexity of unique individual presentation.
    Thirdly, Chinese herbal medicine offers a kind of modular approach, with an arsenal of base prescriptions (many tried and tested over centuries) which are then tailored and modified for the patient by the addition and subtraction of ingredients or by flexible combinations with other prescriptions. Of course it would be naive to think that Chinese medicine handles this approach without disagreement and contradiction. Prof. Yi-Li Wu showed how Sheng Hua Tang (Generating and Transforming Decoction) was misused in late Imperial China by practitioners who applied it as a one-size-fits-all treatment for postpartum women, despite the fact that it was designed to warm and move blood stasis and was therefore potentially contraindicated (and harmful) for women suffering from heat and deficiency. Her presentation also raised the more complex question of how and when Chinese medicine practitioners should prescribe unmodified formulas, modified formulas or entirely different formulas.
    It is hard to do justice to the range of presentations at this conference, several of which took me to the edge (and beyond) of my ability to handle systems science, biology and physics. And the range of presentations - from the history of qi in ancient Chinese philosophy to the weaknesses and potential pitfalls of Chinese medicine research - threatened to overwhelm at times. But it was hard to escape the feeling that these discussions were taking place at the cutting edge of 21st century medicine.

June' 3rd Monday.

Dear Friends,

This is a little update following our monthly meeting this week. It has been a very dynamic evening with lots of positive feedback from last event at St John's and some new and fresh ideas to look forward to as well. Warm welcome to Brett, Jake and Caroline that joined us for the first time. Other present: David K, Myra, Sarah, Brian, Charly, Eamer, Nat. Apologies from Tony and Sheila.

The benefit reassessment has been discussed: the Mental Health Resistance Network, specially Dave Skull, deserve great praise for the hard work being done to educate people on their basic rights being trampled on by the British Government.

Dave Skull and COIN (Community Options Involvement Network) have worked hard in producing a easy to read document for people from the moment they receive the "calling letter".

David Amery has also sent us an updated document to the one distributed on the night of the 10th, with the and mental). The need to create a working group In East London that might duplicate the work that the MHRN are doing was discussed. If anyone is free and willing to get on board please let us know or contact the MHRS directly on mentalhealthresistance-owner@lists.aktivix.org

Charly informed us on the next Your Day Your Say event to take place on the 4th of August on the theme of Complementary Therapies. Being this one of the main issues FEEL campaigns for, Charly has invited us to participate to it with a stall. Everyone was also encouraged by Charly to take part to COIN, which is the body that plans the upcoming YSYD events. Next meeting is on the 4th July, 3-5pm at Albert House, 62 Roman Rd.

Jake has invited us to the forthcoming screening of Healing Homes the documentary of an inspiring method of recovery practiced in Sweden. The screening will take place at LARC on Mon the 27th June 7-10pm and there will be a chance to debate the current psychiatric system and its faults.

Current economic crisis eventually is affecting any field and big pharma is included, as last week article on The Guardian showed.
Now,  more than ever it's time for service users to speak up and out about what best helps in their condition, if they do know, and be suspicious of those professional that don't allow to be challenged: they are only wetting their pants because they don't have answers to give you and intimidating you keeps you on your old rotten boots, securing their salary. A real professional listens to you.

Jake has also told us about the SPEAK OUT AGAINST PSYCHIATRY event which is organised for the 27th July 4-6pm in front of the Royal College of Psychiatry. Police has been informed about this and it will be a fun and peaceful protest with the aim to make friends with the professionals unless they have all sold their souls to Big Pharma. Discontent in patients and carers can not longer be ignored. Banners will be prepared sometimes soon. Get in touch if you have any queries and you wish to get involved writing to speakoutagainstpsychiatry@gmail.com Committee members are very much welcome.
All FEEL members demonstrated enthusiasm and support for the SOAP's initiative.

David has been contacting Roland Littlewood to invite him on a future FEEL event on the theme of STIGMA & RACISM. It was discussed weather or not having more official speakers, when with such hot topic more people could participate contributing from the floor. Approximate date is for mid November at Kingsley Hall.

Some agit-prop was also suggested by David to take place on the 15th of September in front of ELFT headquarters at the East One building, during the trust AGM.


We received some feedback from Patricia, correcting the wrong statement I sent out in the last mail. Apologies to Patricia were sent.

From: patricia howlett

Hi & thanks for the newsletter.

I wanted to correct wthe point accredited to me @ the St Johns meeting.

I said:

The CCHR was an American-based organization who were campaigning against the use of psychotropic drugs.

Their campaign dvd available free The Marketing of Madness spoke of the excessive use of medication including the drugging of children. Not "children in America" as you printed. This has been, and currently, is excessive in this country and others around the globe!! I was a teacher in special schools for years and so have first hand experience of this.

I also spoke of the DSM which diagnosis shyness in children as "social affective disorder" which they now have a drug to treat.

The reason I referred to CCHR was due to their extensive publications & research to uncover the truth not that I am, nor promoting Scientology as this is where this work began.

Even the best of loonies have some great accomplishments!!!

I would appreciate it if you could print a correction, either just to put the truth of what I said straight, or if you want, to desseminate the full information of my contribution as above.Thanks.

One Love,

Patricia


Thank you all for reading and sharing with us lots of tremendous important info.

Best wishes,
FEEL Team

June Newsletter.

Dear Friends,

We wish to thank all of you that helped and got involved in
FEEL event in support to the MHRN (Mental Health Resistance
Network) last Friday the 10th.
Thank you Ms Angela for letting us access a church smelling of
fresh flowers; to the Madlark for entertaining us with their music
and for supplying the sound system, to Ms Ann for offering her
BSL interpreting, for the wonderful performance from Frank & Sophie and to all the expected and unexpected speakers.
All really appreciated!!!

The MHRN are ruthlessly continuing their campaign against the
welfare benefit cuts, meeting in South London about once per
month. Anyone that wishes to get in touch with them, please
send an email at mentalhealthresistance-owner@lists.aktivix.org

Mike informed us about the Slice of Life in London project
an idea started by Kirsty Hall and Furhan Iqbal aimed at
helping young unemployed people with mental health problems.
Visit their blog http://sliceoflifelondon.wordpress.com 

Marion shared some views of the projects happening in
Ealing and invited anyone interested to get in touch with
them at marian.obrien@loudandclear.org or 07896811226
http://www.loudandclear.org/

Patricia raised the issue of the drugged American children,
allarm sent out by the campaigns of the CCHR
http://www.cchr.org/cchr-reports/child-drugging/introduction.html

John invited us to the projection of the documentary Healing Homes
Mon, June 27th 7-10 pm at LARC, 62 Fieldgate St, E1 1ES
This film by Daniel Mackler explores a non-medical approach to
mental illness which has had a lot of success in Sweden
An open discussion will follow the viewing. Free admission
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=128409567239591

Another invitation from John is to participate to the Speak Out
Against Psychiatry an original protest of this kind
to take place right in front of the Royal College of Psychiatry
on Wed, 27th July, 4-6pm to make our voices heard and
demand a change in a damaging system as psychiatry is
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=211203888908921


Some more discussion will follow at our FEEL meeting next
Monday the 20th 6.30-8.30 at LARC. Please join us if you can.

To follow a few other bits of information that might interest some of you.


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Radio interview with Catherine G Lucas Founder, Spiritual Crisis Network Tues 14 June 4pm GMT, repeated Sun 19 June 3pm GMT, talking about her new book and the SCN Visit www.stroudfm.co.uk and click Listen Live

SCN new blog: http://www.in-case-of-spiritual-emergency.blogspot.com/
Website http://www.spiritualcrisisnetwork.org.uk/SCN.shtml
SCN monthly meeting on Fri 17th June, 7-9pm at the Buddisth Centre, Roman Road

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SOTERIA NETWORK

This is to let you know about significant developments in local Soteria Network groups around the UK. Firstly a new local group has started up in Brighton over the last few months, and there is now a Soteria Brighton webpage on our website, under the 'local groups' section here. If you would like to get involved with the Brighton group there is a form that you can complete (which can be accessed through the Soteria Brighton page) on which you can indicate how you would like to be involved.
The other local group which is continuing to develop is Soteria Bradford, who are starting to run workshops for people who are interested in volunteering to work in their project as well as others who are interested in the Soteria and Windhorse approaches. The first workshop will take place on Saturday 2nd July. To find out more about this workshop and to book a place, please click here.
Thanks for your continuing interest in the work of the Soteria Network.

With Best Wishes,
Soteria Network.

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CoolTan Arts Midnight Largactyl Shuffle  
Saturday 18 June 2011, meet at 23:45pm for 12:00 midnight start
Meet at Tate Modern, Bankside, London SE1 9TG (main entrance on Holland Street)
Night time is the time for the Outsider, the sleepless, the restless, and the wanderer. Charles Dickens, an avid nightwalker, asked: “Are not the sane and the insane equal at night as the sane lie a dreaming?” Join us in the footsteps of past and present nightwalkers; learn about artists and writers who have made moonlit London their own. We will also be celebrating the summer solstice, marking the shortest night of the year, with a look at the magic of pagan midsummer.

Participate in this unique procession from the ‘powerhouse’ Tate Modern to the home of contemporary psychiatry, the Maudsley Hospital.
Walkers meet at 12:00 midnight at the main entrance of Tate Modern and finish the walk in the wee hours of Sunday at the Maudsley Hospital, where you’ll have the possibility to rest at the chapel for a few hours. Feel free to bring sandwiches, tea, coffee for the route (no alcohol please).
Walk leaders wear orange high-vis jackets and rucksack. If you cannot find the group of walkers, please call us on 0798 565 8443.
http://www.cooltanarts.org.uk



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Royal College of Psychiatrists launches new website to help people return to work after mental illness

The Royal College of Psychiatrists has launched a new online resource offering information and guidance about returning to work after a period of mental ill-health. The Work and Mental Health website is divided into four main parts, and is aimed at workers, carers, employers and clinicians.

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Hi People

find attached e versions of fliers / posters for the two events CREATIVE ROUTES have happening for the CAMBERWELL ARTS FESTIVAL -
'THE RESURRECTION OF THE POET'S COMMUNION'
a Spontaneous Celebration of the Summer Solstice in the Bardic Tradition - Open mic Poetry and Acoustic Music -

Special guest poets and performers - would be performers more than welcome - come early and register to perform to avoid disappointment -
a special 'one off' revival of the popular POET'S COMMUNION events that we used to run regularly in the sadly demised 'ART' bar in Camberwell and which there is a demand to bring back as a regular function - keep watching this space for more details - we will be back -

MONDAY 20TH JUNE-  8pm until Midnight
THE RECREATION GROUND
65 CAMBERWELL CHURCH ST SE5 (ADMISSION FREE)

these events are being staged as part of the Camberwell Arts Festival -  www.camberwellarts.org.uk
for more info on the events and CREATIVE ROUTES  call  - 077 577 15035 or go to -  http://tinyurl.com/6155qzb

'EVEN MORE MIDSUMMER MADNESS' - COMPLETELY 'OFF THE WALL' MUSIC AND POETRY AND PERFORMANCE -
Featuring local ambient industrial noise merchants the mighty AMPERSAND-
Poet SIBYL MADRIGAL accompanied by highly respected multi instrumentalist improvisational musician ALEX WARD
Quirky and original singer songwriter DAVE RUSSELL
Original poet / performer FRAN ISHERWOOD
Eccentric 'theatre of the absurd' duo LE DONNE

And highly regarded singer musician CHRIS LEEDS who will - with the support of various musical friends- treat us to some of his amazing music that incorporates elements of folk , blues, country and gospel in an astounding blend -
@the JOINERS ARMS DENMARK HILL SE5
SATURDAY 25TH JUNE 8PM - MIDNIGHT (ADMISSION FREE)

Same info as above re Camberwell Arts Festival / CREATIVE ROUTES

All buses to Camberwell Green -
Tube OVAL / ELEPHANT & CASTLE
BR - DENMARK HILL / ELEPHANT & CASTLE / PECKHAM RYE- then bus to
Camberwell Green. - (both events)

PLEASE CIRCULATE THIS INFO TO INTERESTED PEOPLE IN YOUR NETWORKS IF YOU CAN - THANKS
LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU THERE -

Dave Skull
CREATIVE ROUTES -




NEXT FEEL MONTHLY MEETING DATES
Meet at LARC 62, Fieldgate st, Whitechapel 6,30-8.30pm


MON 20th JUNE
MON 18th JULY
MON 15th AUGUST
MON 19th SEPTEMBER

Osborne’s heartless cuts

The shocking impact of Osborne’s heartless cuts on the disabled 

“Although 4,000 of the most vulnerable disabled claimants will be exempt because they need help through the day or night, most ill and disabled people will be forced to move into cheaper accommodation, often outside the area where they live.” 

Read full article here