If it is rare to see learning disabled people interviewed or mentioned in the mainstream media (unless they’re involved in a care scandal), then it is completely unheard of to see someone with a learning disability conducting an interview.
Which is why I’m posting these images of Shanna Lau and Jermaine Williams who visited Channel 4 last month (to coincide with the local and European elections) to interview Jon Snow. The news anchor talked about accessibility in the news and voting and their interview is published today in the bi-monthly Easy News, the first accessible news magazine for people with learning disabilities which is supported by United Response.
Shanna Lau and Jermaine Williams at Channel 4 news
Shanna and Jermaine are part of the team that produces the magazine; launched last year, it uses simple words and images to create easy to explain big news stories and help people engage with current affairs and politics.Stories include the death of Nelson Mandela, the Winter Olympics and Paralympics and the 2014 Budget. By the sixth edition, 3,272 people had downloaded it – 250 per cent over target. According to United Response, 90 per cent of readers say it is easier to understand than other news sources while 78 per cent feel politics is now relevant to their lives, compared to 31 per cent a year previously.
L-R, Shanna Lau, Jon Snow and Jermaine Williams at Channel 4
Jon Snow told Easy News: “I think sometimes [news is] happening in places in the world that [people] have never heard of…And it’s very difficult to explain to people in a short space of time – because you only have a very short time in the news – it’s very difficult to give them all the facts. And sometimes you need a lot of facts to understand what a story is all about.
“I certainly think that [news can help people to vote]. If you are able to simplify it, which we very often do not, we assume a level of understanding which often isn’t out there. But I think if you can simplify it, it will make it very much easier for people to vote.”
An easy read version of the full interview, which was set up by United Response with help from disability campaigner, Kaliya Franklin, is in the ninth edition of Easy News published today. To download the latest edition of Easy News and to sign up for future editions, go to the United Response website.
I recall listening to Radio 4’s The Archers as a teenager on long hot summer afternoons; the “heatwave” summer of 1976 springs to mind. As with listening to cricket, the radio soap helped me to relax and I warmed to its quaint and easy listening style. I would not have envisaged all these years later that I would be involved with the programme – and with such a controversial storyline.
I’ve been advising The Archers on the storyline about the depression experienced by the character Darrell Makepeace. The Archers is moving with the times. It remains a quintessentially English portrayal of village life, but also has to echo the modern age and remain current. Just yesterday, new figures were published on use of the Mental Health Act in England, showing that the number of detentions, which has increased by 12 per cent in the last five years, exceeded 50,000 in 2012/13.
Controversial, contemporary plotlines will appeal to the listeners, but Radio 4 must get the balance right by keeping its traditional support base whilst acquiring a younger audience. The Archers is the world’s longest running radio soap opera and the station’s most popular non-news show with more than 5 million listeners.
With this in mind, I began offering advice on the character Darrell and his spiralling fall into depression about three months ago. As part of the Time To Change media advisory service, my role was to try to add as much realism and sensitivity to his presentation. This differed so much from my previous advisory role for the character Zak Dingle in the soap Emmerdale. Why is this so?
Well, Darrell is a character who has hit rock bottom and, in doing this, has not only caused much pain to himself but also to those around him. Chaotic and unpredictable would be just two words to describe this. He is also very manipulative. The Archers’ listeners appear divided in their opinions about this. I remain very enthused that we have highlighted the devastation of depression, its indiscriminate nature, and the “loose cannon” impact.
Emmerdale’s Zak endeared himself to the viewers as he was deemed a “loveable rogue” The fans empathised with his plight. But Darrell is not so endearing and his manipulative behaviour has only served to isolate him from most fans.
Therein lies the challenge for me, and the producers themselves – to promote more understanding and acceptance of mental illhealth, and its indiscriminate nature. I received praise and criticism – in equal measure – from listeners, and that’s fine. I no longer lose sleep at night worrying about criticism; it opens up a debate and encourages more dialogue around mental health that so far there is a reluctance to do.
This work is challenging because, by my very nature, I am a sensitive person. I have had to grow a thicker skin since to take the blows but the praising comments helps to ease the pain. The criticism at times to my role and advice taken has been quite personal, but I can only give advice from my own perspective.
I have a passion to promote more understanding of mental health and eradicate stigma from society. I hope The Archers’ storyline will help transform people’s attitudes to mental health.
* The first national Time to Talk Day takes place on 6 February, aiming to spark a million conversations about mental health. Part of Time to Change, it highlights how little things – sending a text, a chat over a cup of tea- can make a big difference to someone with mental health problems.
Artist Rachel Gadsden’s works on her new project in parliamentDid you know Big Ben isn’t the name of the clock or the tower at the Houses of Parliament, but refers to the great bell inside the building?
How about the fact that the word “parliament” comes from the French, “parler”, meaning “to talk” (and yes, politicians could do with less rhetoric and more action).
These were just two facts my eight-year-old daughter pounced on during a recent family-friendly project at the Houses of Parliament.
This week is Parliament Week, a country-wide series of events that aim to engage people with parliamentary democracy. While the Houses of Parliament is one of the most instantly recognisable buildings in the world and children know its name, what goes on inside it is usually either a mystery or rather dull (unless, my daughter points out, you’re talking about Guy Fawkes).
Our recent visit was part of this year’s Big Draw event, although it reflects the ethos of Parliament Week. It involved an art workshop led by artist Rachel Gadsden to create four new works. Gadsden (who I’ve written about before here and here) is known for disability awareness raising work.
Saint image, by Rachel Gadsden
Gadsden’s ground-breaking project – the first time that the public has had the opportunity to contribute to artworks that will form part of the parliament art collection – is sponsored the Speaker’s Art Fund. The scheme involves the artist combining her own art with pieces created by the public in a series of workshops in Westminster Hall. The aims is to create new contemporary images based on mosaics of the UK’s four patron saints, St George, St David, St Andrew and St Patrick, which are in parliament’s central lobby.
Out visit included a “family-friendly” guided tour about the history, architecture and artwork in the Houses of Lords and Commons. The tour, according to my eight-year-old reviewer was “interesting but a bit too long” (I’d have to agree, despite the engaging anecdotes, an hour and 15 minutes with one stop to sit down can be difficult for most primary school pupils).
However, she “liked the information, like hearing that alarm bells sound in some buildings around parliament to call the MPs to vote”. She was loved some of the Tudor portraits after studying the period at school and was intrigued by the Queen’s robing room. Looking around the Commons and Lords has made some rather woolly concepts a little more accessible and real; she spotted the Commons on television recently, commenting that she had stood in the same room as the MPs.
After the tour, we joined workshop members creating everything from pencil drawings to mosaics based on the art they’d seen in parliament. As Gadsden says, “the subject matter is not set in stone and this is above all an ‘imaginative’ project, and participants contributed a range of drawings to which include interpretations, but also creations which express their personal identities.” Now the workshops are completed – participants’ original drawings were photocopied and included within the saints paintings that Gadsden is creating – the artist is working on the pieces and the public and MPs will have the chance to view them next year.
Work in progress in Westminster Hall, Houses of Parliament
Gadsden, who has the eye disorder retinoschisis and lost the sight in her left eye this year, explains that her work is “underpinned by the notion of disability, viewed from a positive perspective.” As she says, “I just take every day at a time and concentrate on my inner vision rather than what I see with my eye”.
Gadsden has always championed the belief that disability is not regarded as a barrier to success; in 2007 she became the first contemporary artist in residence at Hampton Court Palace and was commissioned for London 2012 by Unlimited, the arts and disability programme launched for the four-year arts programme, the Cultural Olympiad.
Art workshop in parliament
The artist adds: “I hope that my artistic practice stands as an example of the importance of the right of freedom of expression: addressing issues relating to disability and, by doing so, contributing to the process of bringing about cultural change. So this commission has given me the opportunity to not only collaborate with the public at large to create the new ‘Saints’ paintings…but also to give a new younger audience the opportunity to visit parliament for the first time, and to have the chance to see the House of Lords and Commons and learn about the procedure of parliament as part of the overall process…it is vital for young people to have the opportunity to understand parliament”.
Given the current debate about increasing social mobility and aspiration, part of the solution is not only making “authority” more accessible – encouraging young people and people with disabilities to visit the, for example, the government’s seat of power, – but inviting people, once they set foot inside, to take part in something as creative and inclusive as an arts workshop.
* Rachel Gadsden tweets at @rachelgadsden
* Information about parliament’s education service is here, including its latest plans to create a dedicated education centre for children and young people.
* Social care provider Dimensions is hosting an accessible Question Time event this week, which I’m involved in, more details here
David Bailey with his stormtrooper helmet for Art Wars, an exhibition to raise awareness about the disappearance of Tom Moore, brother of Art Wars creator Ben.
Tom Moore, who went missing in 2003, his family is now renewing the search to find him.
July 17 2003, Ancona, northern Italy. A 31-year-old Englishman withdraws 150 Euros from a cash point. This everyday event just over a decade ago has huge significance for the Moore family because it was the last financial transaction Tom Moore is known to have made; the last sign his parents and siblings have that he was still alive. Tom has not been seen or heard or from since.
Next week, Tom’s brother Ben is renewing the search for his sibling with an art exhibition featuring high profile artists as well as rising stars of the art world. The aim is to raise both awareness and funds to mark the tenth year since Tom’s disappearance. Proceeds from Art Wars, a collection of Star Wars stormtrooper helmets transformed by internationally-renowned artists, will be auctioned for the Missing Tom fund.
A note written by Tom Moore before he went missing.
Ben, founder of public art enterprise Art Below, has collaborated with Andrew Ainsworth, creator of the original 1976 stormtrooper helmet, to produce the show. Art Wars launches at the inaugural Strarta Art Fair at the Saatchi Gallery next Wednesday (October 9), with works showcased via a series of billboard posters at Regent’s Park underground, coinciding with Frieze London.
“Stormtrooper helmets are iconic, international, instantly recognisable and timeless,” explains Ben of the medium and the message. “I’d been working with Andrew Ainsworth since 2007 and it was always in my mind to do this show with big artists; I had access to these iconic objects and I knew that there were artists who would like to be involved because it’s something we all grew up with [the Star Wars films]. When I realized it was the 10th anniversary of Tom going missing, I needed to catapult myself into action and do something to get the search for Tom re-energized.”
Artists, all of whom were issued with a helmet cast from the original 1976 moulds, include Damien Hirst, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Paul Fryer, Mat Collishaw and David Bailey. Other participants are English multimedia street artist D*Face, Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos, Turner prize nominee Yinka Shonibare, street artist Inkie, Mr.BrainWash, East London’s Alphabet Street creator Ben Eine, BP Portrait Award winner Antony Micallef and upcoming star Oliver Clegg.
The money raised from Art Wars will enable the family to travel in the search and to publicise their efforts to find Tom. Ben also hopes to bring attention to the Missing People charity, which has supported his family. There is also a new website Missing Tom to help locate the now 41-year-old.
‘StormOffSki’: Stormtrooper head encrusted in Swarowksi crystals by Ben Moore
As Diana Brown, Ben and Tom’s older sister, writes on the Missing Tom website, the Moores were, and are, a close knit family. “Tom and I growing up, had been as close as it possible to be as brother and sister,” Diana writes. “There was a curious closeness that comes, from having a brother seven years before another two brothers arrived. We were the lucky products of a military family [the sibling’s father was a colonel in the Royal Marines]…We moved house frequently, but were always secure in the knowledge we had loving parents and family all around us.”
Tom was, by all accounts, a genial child (“Tom was blonde, small for his age, good-looking, with a quirky sense of humour, a born actor, musical…with his beaming smile and his floppy fringe. He was thoughtful, kind and never hurt a soul”, writes Diana) but he found it tough at his all-boys school.
Antony Micallef with his ‘Peace Maker’ helmet, for the Art Wars show
After school came a gap year to India where Tom “full of hope and promise”, as Diana writes, grew “disheartened at the huge confusion that India presented to him” and was affected by the drugs he found in Goa. He returned to live with his parents before going to Lancaster University to study theology. There, as Diana found, his mental turmoil was obvious. “He played music, he studied and he went about his daily routines, but he found life very hard. I found my brother, confused and suffering from the onset of mental illness. He left university early and came to live at home.”
The following few years sound like a fragile mixture of travels, doctors and medication, with Tom’s family struggling to find the right balance between supporting their son’s desire for freedom and realising that medication might help bring some stability to his mental health, the “daily dark thoughts” which Diana describes on the website.
A few months before he went missing, Tom had travelled to a shrine in Bosnia, where Ben eventually found him in a nearby town. Ben explains: “When he went away again a few months later, I thought I could find him – but the months started turning into years.”
“The last time I saw Tom, we had game of chess and although I didn’t usually beat him, on this occasion I was winning,” says Ben. “It was a particularly slow game and now I look back at it I realise he wasn’t mentally present, he was quiet and absorbed in other thoughts. I often wonder if I should have kept the pieces how they were, so we can finish the game one day.”
Ben spent the three years following his brother’s disappearance looking for him, visiting well known religious sites across Europe knowing of his brother’s interest in religion, and following various trails (like the cash point transaction). At one point, he says, he was only two weeks behind him, but the demands of work and his own young family meant he eventually had to put the search on hold.
“I still have great hope, confidence and faith that I am going to see Tom again, but we need to get out there and figure out where he is,” says Ben. He wants his brother to know that his aim is to make sure he’s okay, rather than simply dragging him back home against his will. The disappearance of Tom, says Ben, has left a gaping hole in their lives: “I used to rely on Tom for certain things – he was there for me, I wouldn’t go to my dad in a certain situation, or my sister or mother – there things that only he had the remedy for, I miss that.”
As Ben explains in a short video (above and on the Missing Tom site), life as a family of a missing person means struggling with constant uncertainty mixed with optimism: “Searching for Tom is like searching for the holy grail…I see homeless people in the street and wonder if they are on the same journey.” Although a memorial has been held for Tom since he disappeared, his brother refused to grieve for his missing sibling: “He is still alive, that is what I believe.”
Bullying crushes a child’s self esteem and confidence. It can leave a child feeling alone, totally helpless, and with no one to turn to. In their childhood innocence and naivety some even blame themselves for their torment. Many schools now have robust anti bullying policies in the form of bullying charters.
We live in an age where teachers acknowledge widely the emotional needs of children more than ever before. Resources such as SEAL (social and emotional aspects of learning) provide increased emotional support in many schools.
As a consequence bullying has now left many classrooms, but not all. This is commendable but, not only do schools’ attitudes and actions in response to bullying vary considerably, is it enough?
And now in the age social networking sites it has insidiously entered the sanctuary of children’s bedrooms. Running away from the school environment and threatening bullies now leads straight to the bedroom, a once safe haven where a child’s computer suddenly provides no way of escape. Computers are the contemporary child’s toy and some may say the innocence of youth has died as a result. This year’s forthcoming Anti-bullying Week, for example, has a special focus on cyber-bullying.
These issues have been on my mind since the death of 14-year-old Hannah Smith who suffered relentless bullying online. Her death was not a stark reminder of how vulnerable our children are not protected from bullies even in the supposed safety of their own homes. There has been intense speculation and much knee-jerking as a result of her death, but the bottom line is that social media played a part in her suicide. Whatever happened, she was a vulnerable child.
But social networking sites can be so liberating for many providing an outlet for those who lack self confidence in face to face interactions and who might have smaller social networks than usual. Many can make friends and form relationships online that they would otherwise struggle to in school.
These sites can be very helpful, especially for those who lack social contact, or may have poor social skills, agoraphobia etc, but the flip side of the coin is the bullying issue. Reaching an acceptable compromise regarding social networking will not be easy because the genie has now been let out of the box, so to speak.
When experiencing low moods, your reality becomes alien to that of everyone else. I have always advised people to seek help at the earliest opportunity to prevent depression reaching this critical stage. And this is where social sites that support mental health can help.
There is the social site launched by comedian Ruby Wax, for example, Black Dog Tribe, “a place in which like-minded people can find their own ‘tribe’ and share experiences in a supportive online community through forums, blogs, daily news and mental health information”. Another example is Kent and Medway NHS Trust, for example, which is piloting Buddy, an online system that records mood changes. And there are a raft of support-specific online forums linked to various charities and support groups which can make all the difference to vulnerable people.
This is the positive aspect of these sites.
Yet it is too simplistic an argument that social media and networks alone can help prevent depression. An holistic approach can include talking therapies, physical exercise and medication, if appropriate. These therapies can support each other – medication, as I know from personal experience and from my nursing career, has its down side. It can also make your mood fluctuate wildly, become disinhibited and even suicidal. Having easy access to online support can, at times like this, be vital. These issues are brought into sharp focus by the news today that the number of people needing treatment for mental health issues will have increased by more than 2 million by 2030.
We should look closely at both the negatives and positives about social media and networks in relation to mental health – and ignore them at our peril. While it is also wrong to assume that social media alone can push someone towards mental health problems, excessive use of social sites, as is often reported, can itself lead to problems.
Children sitting for hours in front of a screen removes them from the social contact of others that will improve their face to face communication skills and confidence in later life. Effective communication involves eye contact, body language, and gesturing. All ignored when lying in bed hitting a keyboard in silent and lonely surroundings.
Cyber bullies and unpoliced social media sites populated by children (or those posing as children) are not part of a civilised society. We must make it all stop. Now.
Helen Knowles, “Birth with Orgasm” (image courtesy of the artist and GV Art gallery)
Hyper-real images that question cultural attitudes towards women and childbirth form part of a new exhibition opening today.
The show at the GV Art gallery by Helen Knowles, Private View: Public Birth, features both figurative and abstract images of women “in the transcendental state of birth”; Knowles founded the Birth Rites Collection in 2008, the first collection of contemporary art dedicated to the subject.
Knowles has used screen grabs from YouTube videos to show women at the crowning stage of birth, when the baby’s head beings to emerge. By using footage from social media platforms – films usually reserved for private viewing – Knowles hopes to question the discomfort some audiences have with certain images.
The Birthing of Azheyo Aeoro (Image courtesy of artist and GV Art)
The concept is a refreshing and thought-provoking one. Most public perceptions of new mothers involve images of immaculately groomed famous women whose bodies magically snap back into place and while “beautiful” is a word often used to describe babies, it’s rarely associated with birth itself (and certainly not linked to images of the birth process).
Yet the pieces of work on display in today’s exhibition are intriguing and often ethereal, reflecting notions of female strength.
* Private View: Public Birth, a curatorial collaboration between Poppy Bowers and Helen Knowles, runs from 16-22 September at the GV Art gallery, Marylebone, London.
Oii My Size, a web-based project to raise awareness about respect in teen relationships
Late night on the estate, London. Two hooded and capped teen boys hang out, waiting for a couple of teen girls. Nervously the girls approach. Tiana used to go out with Stigz, but she’s not sure about this new guy he’s brought along. She thought they were going out to a party, but the boys lead them to this new guy’s place. His parents are out. Tiana fights her instincts to run. The door shuts. The boys start to grab them. The girls resist but they won’t stop. Everything happens so fast…
Thankfully these events are just part of an awareness-raising film for Oii My Size, a youth-led project targeting teens. The Oii My Size project. For those not down with the kids, “my size” means “my kind of girl”. The project is based on a colourful website full of videos and pictures to help teens understand what makes relations between teen boys and girls appropriate and respectful.
The scenario described above is, however, based on a true story and reflects the reality of life for many teen girls. From serious assault like this, to sharing naked pictures of them (sexting) and being spoken to disrespectfully, life can be a minefield for girls when it comes to teen boys. A recent study by the NSPCC reported up to 40 per cent of young people had been involved in sexting, mainly under pressure from other schoolchildren while a conference in Manchester run by the area’s Safeguarding Children Board heard reports from schools that sexting had become a “daily problem” affecting girls as young as 11 years old.
No one knows this better than the group of 12 teen girls who have shaped Oii My Size.
The girls, aged 16, from Pimlico, London, met to socialise until becoming involved in a Peabody Staying Safe campaign. The girls had previously worked with youth arts company Dream Arts to produce a warning video about staying safe around boys and jumped at the chance to spread the message about safe relationships and the dangers of sexting (sending indecent images to an under-18 is illegal). The video, which starred the girls themselves, is now on the Oii My Size site.
All of the girls had some kind of personal experience with the topic – whether affected directly, like the events in the video, or having friends who had to move schools due to sexting, or being exposed to abuse such as a Blackberry Messenger “slags list” – where girls are publicly named and shamed.
The girls were supported by Peabody, Dream Arts and youth-led media social enterprise Mediorite, which I volunteer with. Peabody worked with the girls under its Staying Safe campaign, Dream Arts supported them to work together and provided them with a specialist support worker for two hours each week after school.
As well as tackling issues such as sexting , Oii My Size focuses on disrespectful chat-up lines (or “churpz”) and when to say no in teen relationships. The magazine-style website also has light-hearted videos of teen boys trying out their best (read:worst) churpz on the unimpressed girls, like “Do you work at Subway? Cos you got me on a foot-long” and invites users to “rate my churpz”. This cleverly avoids preaching by demonstrating that the disrespectful churpz just make girls feel embarrassed, intimidated and degraded. In other words –boys- they do not work.
The website also contains a video of Althia Legal-Miller, a doctoral research student at King’s College, London, and an expert in female adolescence and violence. She explains the dangers of sexting, promoting the key message of “trust your instincts” to teenage girls in relationships.
The girls behind the project say they “have chosen this topic as we have realized that we feel intimidated and disrespected due to our gender.” Team member Shanice George explains that “hopefully the website will educate young girls and boys that sexting is illegal, cos we didn’t even know it was illegal until we started the project, and if we didn’t know how were other people to know? Also we wanted to educate boys on how they talk to girls… and we are now working with a domestic violence woman from Peabody and we would like to make girls aware about domestic violence too.”
Lucy Ferguson from Mediorite adds that the girls felt the topic “was a real, urgent issue that just wasn’t being tackled at school, and that no one was tackling it…The project was a success because the girls really challenged themselves to think about the audience.”
The girls not only gained new skills from the project but also won a Silver Arts Award, an Open College Network accreditation in project management via Peabody and a Nominet internet safety award. The website got 2000 hits in 24 hours the day after they won the award, and has been promoted at school assemblies by the girls to over 3000 people.
The project’s audience will undoubtedly grow, as Lucy Ferguson explains: “Most youth groups don’t really explore what someone who doesn’t know them is going to think of their project, they don’t think about how to sell and engage the audience, but these girls really got that. So ‘rate my churpz’ – as a traffic-driver is a really sophisticated idea. It shows they understood the need to engage boys too, and draw people in with a sense of humour, and then engage them with the harder content. Most youth groups are completely unforgiving to the audience. This was a much more sophisticated approach.”
Stephen Fry’s recent disclosure of his attempted suicide last year highlights that mental illness does not discriminate between the “haves” and “have nots”, the famous and the “ordinary”. None of us are immune from the feelings Fry described.
The representation of mental illness in the media in recent years (you need only think of Frank Bruno’s treatment by the tabloids), in television dramas and soaps has not, over many years been empathic. People with mental health issues seem to be either suicidal or mostly violent and dangerous – the two extremes of mental health geared more towards boosting viewing figures than portraying realism and authenticity.
These exaggerated displays of mental health only perpetuate the stigma and stereotypes. In fact it would be fair to say media representation has often been ignorant, discriminatory, and at times criminalising towards the mentally ill. In fact earlier this month, the actress Glenn Close apologized for her depiction of a mentally ill woman in Fatal Attraction.
Sensationalistic storylines and stigmatising stereotyping have only served to misinform and cloud the viewers image of someone who is ill and needing help – but that someone could be any one of us at any time of our lives.
The Time To Change media advisory service, which I am involved in, was set up to change negative perceptions and offer advice and guidance to promote more realism and sensitivity when covering mental health storylines. Advising the soap Emmerdale on a storyline featuring Zak Dingle, the popular loveable rogue, felt like living a double life for a year as the programme documented how his mental ill health spiraled downwards. Emmerdale provided me with a unique test: to positively influence a popular soap storyline. It afforded me the opportunity to use my own personal experience of depression, and lifetime working as a qualified mental nurse, to bring realism and authenticity for a change. I took on the role with a gusto I had not felt for many years.
I immersed myself in the role to the point of drowning. I knew that only by doing this could I truly empathise with Zak’s plight and engage the viewing public. I read countless scripts going over each one with a fine toothcomb burning the midnight oil. I spoke for hours on the telephone with Fiona, the researcher, and my mobile phone was constantly in use for texting and talking over the scenes. I so wanted this to be right.
I felt duty bound to make a difference having been given this opportunity. I advised that showing Zak’s vulnerability and fragile emotional state, rather then the often stigmatising “Mad axeman is dangerous” image, would encourage the viewer to also empathise more. This worked well and delivered the right message to the viewers.
I was made redundant halfway through this work and understandably my self-confidence and esteem was badly dented. In fact it became non-existent. Conversely my work with Emmerdale helped me regain this. I felt I could empathise more with the Zak character as my mood plummeted. I became Zak, or at least this was how I felt at the time. We walked the same troubled path for a while.
The advisory service will continue to influence and craft storylines around mental health. We will continue to provide personal advice and information to researchers, directors, journalists and the stars themselves to make mental health depictions credible. We will provide guidelines and key tips such as to try to allow the characters storylines time to develop. And that recovery can be a long process.
We will encourage the listening of peoples personal stories, and encourage careful thinking about how the other characters in the soap will react. The use of humour is not necessarily a bad thing and bringing in some humour and warmth will challenge peoples often misinformed stereotypes of mental health.
Mental illness doesn’t make people bad so by reinforcing this we can discourage programmes using a mental health storyline to try and explain bad or strange behaviour. For far too long criminalisation of the mentally ill has existed on TV and Radio and this misperception must change.
We have a long road to walk in our media advisory work to get this right. Or as near to accurate as we can. It is crucial that we walk this long and no doubt winding road together. Through collaboration and mutual respect we will make damaging stereotyping of mental illness a distant memory in the media. It is a win-win situation for all concerned.
* Read more thoughts from Lol on the Emmerdale storyline here
* Tips for storylines featuring mental health issues that create dramatic and interesting narratives without alienating audiences, resorting to stereotypes or using a mental illness to try and explain “bad behaviour”:
– to make a charactor plausible and accurate, speak to as many people who have mental health problems as possible. They are the best consultants available and most want to see accuracy on screen
– think about your camera shots. Certain mental health conditions can lead people to feel isolated or to experience altered reality. This can be reflected through close up shots, POV shots or hand held
– give the storyline enough time to develop. It is common that symptoms of mental health problems will manifest over a period of time and build in intensity, rather than develop and explode in the space of one episode
– think about how other characters react. Stigma and discrimination can be as bad as the mental health problem itself for many people. Can you show any empathy from others?
– get expert advice from mental health charities and experts to ensure that the symptoms you are showing on screen are relevant and realistic
– think of your dramatic climax carefully. Most people with mental health problems are not violent so it is unrealistic for a storyline to always end in violence or homicide
Based on information from the Time to Change media advisory service. Read more here.
Pertti Kurikka’s Name Day, a film about punk rockers with attitude
“I need a little respect and equality in my life”
“Decision-makers are cheaters, they suck..they don’t give a sh*t about us disabled”
“I don’t want to live in a group home, I don’t want to live in an institution”
“They make promises in Parliament and break them every day”
Not the words from a campaign against welfare cuts or disability rights, but lyrics from a Finnish punk band whose learning disabled members star in a new film and are about to embark on a UK tour.
The Punk Syndrome, already being shown in selected cinemas and out on DVD next month, is a documentary about the band Pertti Kurikka’s Name Day (see the trailer with subtitles at the end of this post).
The documentary by filmmakers Jukka Kärkkäinen and J-P Passi follows the members – Pertti Kurikka on guitar, Kari Aalto, vocals, Sami Helle on bass and drummer Toni Välitalo – as they record, fight, find love and gradual fame. Guitarist Pertti, who lends his name to the group, composes the music and writes the lyrics with vocalist Kari. The band members’ learning disabilities include Down’s syndrome and autism.
Kari, left, and Pertti
The film bills itself as painting a “frank, edgy and funny portrait of the individual band members” and you can believe the hype; this is one film that does what it says on the tin.
It is warm, refreshingly raw, poignant and laugh-out-loud funny. Watch out for some awkward issues around personal hygiene, a comically honest complaint from one musician to another that the music he’s writing is, well, a little too difficult to play, and an al fresco gig in a shopping area where the audience, pensioners included, is encouraged to “wave your hands in the air like you don’t give a f..”.
This isn’t a portrait of vulnerable people undergoing music therapy (although, even the band originated through music therapy workshops, does it matter if the end result brings their story and their experiences as adults with learning disabilities to light?) but charts the bust ups and the brotherly respect between the musicians (although there’s more of the former than the latter).
My favourite song? The one about one band member’s trip to the pedicurist, a regular event that inspires an angry song. On one level a darkly comic diatribe against yet another appointment that has to be kept, on another, a spitting rage against a lack of choice and control; being forced to do things you don’t really want to do at times when you don’t really want to do them.
Pertti and his band members
The band was formed in 2009 in a workshop arranged by Lyhty, a non-profit organization that provides housing and education services. The group came together on punk fan Pertti’s name day [the tradition of celebrating the day associated with your given name] the band’s name was born. Pertti won the silver medal in the Nordic countries’ street organ championships in 2008.
As for Pertti’s fellow musicians, Kari is into motorcycles and has a girlfriend who he one days hopes to move in with. He hates group residential living, a sentiment he puts into his lyrics: “I live in a group home in Töölö, but I don’t like it because the area is too quiet. People in Kallio are nicer and there are record stores and bars.” As he says in the film: “Everyone has the right to make a decision about where and how they would like to live.”
Bass player Sami, a volunteer campaigner with the political party he supports, lives in the same group home as Kari. Toni lives with his parents who want him to move into group living, but he wants to stay at home.
Pertti, who describes touring as “terribly lovely” says he has been surprised “to see how many people dig us and say ‘Hey, that band plays damn well.’ We played a gig and they really liked our band.”
If anything, I’d have liked to have known more about their families, a bit more about the process that brought them together, but that would have been a different film. Cinematographer J-P Passi, has said of the documentary: “I hope that our film will show people that these people shouldn’t be though of as defective or inadequate, but rather as individual and complete human beings. I’d like the audience to see them as people who lack certain knowledge and skills but also lack the ability to act destructively against other people.”
To borrow Pertti’s words when he describes his band, this is one “kick-ass” documentary.
* The film is playing in selected venues, see the list of screenings here.
* If Pertti Kurikka’s Name Day and the film are of interest, then check out Stay Up Late, founded by the band Heavy Load. The Brighton charity brings disability arts to the mainstream and advocates for the rights of people to lead the lives they want to. Stay Up Late’s gig buddies scheme, for example, gets people with and without learning disabilities going to gigs together through a love of the same music. You can also check out this link to a documentary about Heavy Load.
An image from the Roma and new migrants photo project
The intriguing photographs here are from those in a new exhibition created by children from Roma, Slovak and Polish communities in east London,
The works, created using pinhole photography, have been produced by 12 young people aged eight to 14 from Roma or new migrant backgrounds. The show is part of a Children’s Society project, the Roundabout Arts Project, and the images reflect the children’s views of their heritage and the summer of Olympic sport. The young people from Newham created 20 pinhole photographs and an animated film (below).
An Olympic-related image from the Roundabout Project exhibition
The project, a partnership between the Children’s Society New Londoners Roma/New Migrants Project, art group Click Academy, aims to promote a greater understanding of European migrants and Roma culture, showing the communities’ contribution to London life.
Artist Marta Kotlarska’s Click Academy uses pinhole photography to encourage social change (with the aim of showing it is possible to “make something out of nothing” and at little cost). As Kotlarska has blogged on the Children’s Society website: “Our hopes for the children to learn the realities of the creative process and have the opportunity to express their creativity were realised. Roma children often don’t have access to the arts because of discrimination and social exclusion and we wanted to change this.”
* The Roundabout Arts Project exhibition is open for three weeks at The Hub, 123 Star Lane, London, E16 4PZ, 9am-8pm from Friday 19 October to Thursday 8 November.
