Category Archives: Mental health

The learning disabled people locked away in lockdown

‘You don’t get kisses, Mummy, you don’t get hugs.’ Jack Cavanagh, on a beach in his younger days, has autism, a learning disability and epilepsy, and lives in secure care in south Wales.

After a year in secure care 105 miles from home, Jack Cavanagh, 17, who has autism, a learning disability and epilepsy, desperately misses his family. They used to see him every weekend, but with Covid restrictions have been unable to visit. As a result, they say, Jack has become more anxious and isolated and recently begged staff to “be” his mum or dad.

I spoke to several families including Jack’s, about how the use of restraint and isolation has increased during Covid. This group of people have been overlooked during the pandemic despite the fact they are more at risk thanks to the virus.

You can read my Guardian piece here.

Coronavirus restrictions have robbed disabled people of their independence

I wrote a personal piece for the Guardian about how Covid-19 is impacting disabled people and families.

Coronavirus has thrust us all into a new normal. Life has come to feel the same yet different. However, for some communities Covid has undermined their very ethos.

My youngest sister Raana, who has a learning disability, has lived in a supported living community in Hampshire for 10 years. We chose the charity that runs her home for its values. It creates a sense of belonging and purpose, focuses on abilities and is governed by the belief that everyone has the right to be involved in society.

Covid-19 means that not only are the guiding principles of the charity are at risk, but my sister’s independence is being undermined.

You can read the piece on the Guardian website here.

Made Possible: Lizzie’s story

Singer-songwriter Lizzie Emeh in a film for the book, Made Possible.

Londoner Lizzie Emeh says that she comes alive when she’s on stage – “like someone’s plugged me into the mains”.

You can get a glimpse of her performance in the short film we shot together to mark the publication of my book, Made Possible: stories of success by people with learning disabilities – in their own words.

Lizzie wasn’t expected to live beyond her third birthday, according to doctors. Today she’s a successful singer-songwriter, making history as the first solo artist with a learning disability to release an album of original songs to the public.

Lizzie’s talent was spotted at an open mic night run by arts charity Heart n Soul, where she’s now a key artist.

‘Made Possible’ is edited by Saba Salman and published by Unbound. Available from the usual booksellers like https://amzn.to/3fMJMXh

coronavirus impact on deaf employees

Everyone struggles with working from home – from managing conference calls to difficulties with Zoom – but imagine what it must be like if you are deaf or have difficulty hearing.

New research by the charity Action on Hearing Loss found that three-quarters of people who live with deafness fear they will be less productive working from home.

My Guardian report explores the barriers and solutions for deaf employees and highlights the work at the Centre for Deaf Education at City Lit college.

City Lit student and deaf mental health worker Ilyaas Cader explains the impact of not being able to communicate in his first language (sign), and calls for greater use of sign language.

Read the piece here.

beautiful Minds

Featured image: Alice Hewson, youth worker and journalist, who is dyspraxic. Credit: Owen Richards for Positive News

Rather than simply accepting people with neurodiverse conditions like autism or dyslexia, what if we recognised their hidden talents?

Positive News has just posted my article about this issue. I heard from four neurodiverse on how the way their brains work has been key to their success.

As Alice, pictured above, says: “I’ve encountered difficulties that other people don’t have to deal with, and that’s made me incredibly caring. I can put myself in someone else’s situation. I respond in a very different way to people who aren’t neurodiverse.”

You can read the entire piece here

uniting to fight loneliness

A new project unites people at opposite ends of the age spectrum – individuals who are among the most excluded groups in society (photo: Anchor Hanover).

Society is in the grip of a loneliness epidemic. Headlines regularly warn about the scale of this modern scourge, from describing how social isolation increases our risk of death, to lamenting Britain’s status as one of the most age-segregated countries in the world.

What command less column inches are the small-scale solutions. There is little consideration of how hyper-local schemes – when funded, publicised and replicated nationally – could tackle loneliness and shift perceptions about the most isolated people in the country.

I’ve just written about a new project that does just this, for Byline Times. Older people at The Beeches in Leatherhead, Surrey, a home run by housing and care charity Anchor, and pupils from Woodlands School meet weekly for singing sessions run by Intergenerational Music Making (IMM), a local community interest company.

Not only are the singers at opposing ends of the age spectrum (the youngest is five, the oldest is 90), they are from two of society’s most excluded groups: the adults have dementia or a disability or depression; the pupils have severe learning difficulties, complex needs or autism. 

Uniting two such disparate groups for an hour a week at the care home has had astonishing results.

It’s a small, simple yet strong solution to the society’s most pressing issue – division. You can read the whole piece here.

Theatre project challenges attitudes to learning disability and autism

“I hope I can get them to think a bit differently, and then to help make things happen a bit differently.”

These are the words of Dayo Koleosho, an actor with the groundbreaking theatre company Access All Areas, describing what he hopes the public will gain from his new show, Madhouse re:exit.

I’ve just written about the project for the Guardian. It’s a show that has been developed and performed by autistic and learning disabled artists and it highlights themes of institutionalisation and isolation, and explores the past, present and future of social care.

The show, which I caught during its London run, opens at the Lowry in Salford on 17 May as part of the Week 53 festival and follows more than two years of research and development.

“As services are cut, people are becoming stuck at home and the isolating walls of institutions are being replaced by people’s bedroom walls,” says Nick Llewellyn, artistic director of Access All Areas. “The walls are still there but [they are] more hidden or societal rather than physical.”

All the images here are shot by photographer Helen Murray, and you can read the entire piece about this superb show over on the Guardian website.

Dayo Koleosho as The Eater, in Madhouse re:exit by Access All Areas (all photos by Helen Murray)

Dayo Koleosho as The Eater

Imogen Roberts as The Goddess]

DJ Hassan as The BIrd

DJ Hassan as The Bird

Cian Binchy as London’s Oldest Baby

A stepping stone to success: new mental health support for women

Being able to do her own washing and having responsibility for her personal possessions symbolised the freedom Michelle Stevens* wanted but was denied in institutional care. Stevens features in my latest Guardian article (screenshot above). Her severe mental health problems meant she was in and out of residential care and mental health wards for a decade. She recalls staff shouting at her and living circumstances that were “very closed up and not nice at all”.

Today, however, Stevens says she is “much happier and freer”. She has a bedroom in a large double-fronted Victorian house – and she loves the garden at her supported living home in West Norwood, south London, which is run by social care provider Certitude. “[It] is cleaner than other places I have been, and has nicer facilities,” says Stevens.

She enjoys socialising – with the 11 other residents and locally – and for the first time in three years, she does her own washing and is trusted with her belongings.

The women-only housing is designed for those with enduring and complex mental health issues who may be stuck in restrictive environments. Certitude provides support while First Priority, a housing association, manages the tenancy agreements. The home opened in September 2016 and residents, who are mostly in their 30s and 40s, benefit from individualised support that is rarely offered in residential or inpatient care.

I’m really grateful to all the women who shared their experiences for the story and talked about the “good road ahead”, as Michelle put it, which now seems to be ahead of them. Read the rest of the article here.

*Not her real name

Community approach to social work delivers more personalised care

If you need social care support, why can’t services respond better to your individual aspirations – instead of fitting you into what’s already on offer?

This aim – shifting traditional social work practice to “community led” methods – is at the heart of a new programme I’ve just reported on.

Leeds is one of nine local authorities changing adult social care by developing community-led social work (in a nutshell – more local solutions). The councils are being supported in this drive by social inclusion charity National Development Team for Inclusion’s community-led support (CLS) programme. NDTi has just published an evaluation from the first year of delivery in the participating areas

Gail*, for example, has a learning difficulty, mobility problems and is prone to angry outbursts. Leeds council adult social care staff have supported her intermittently over a few years, helping with self-care and chaotic living conditions.

Recently, it considered commissioning weekly visits from a support worker to help Gail manage her home. But instead, under a new approach launched in Leeds last year, Gail met social work staff at community “talking points” – venues such as libraries and churches instead of at home or at the council. The neutral environment sparked different conversations about support. Gail said she wanted to volunteer and staff felt able to be more creative with her care.

A social worker supported Gail to explore opportunities at her community centre, where she began volunteering. Her self-esteem has grown, her personal appearance has improved and she has begun anger management classes.

Feedback from people like Gail involved in the new support method includes comments about staff such as “they listened to me” and “we did talk about the important things”.

The concept of community social work is not new, but demand for social care, pressure on staff and funding cuts mean less time and freedom to develop innovative solutions. The 2014 Care Act encourages community-focused support, but this has been hard to achieve. A difficulty in developing “strengths-based” solutions is well documented, for example, in recent guidance from Think Local Act Personal.

At Leeds, adult social services director Cath Roff says the council had two choices: “Either we go down the road of ever-tightening interpretation of eligibility criteria to manage resources, or try a new approach. Social work services are increasingly becoming the ‘border patrol’, policing in order to manage reducing budgets. None of us came into social care to do that.”

Read the rest of the piece here

*not her real name

Men and mental health

As a qualified nurse I have seen at first hand the impact of bullying on a person’s self esteem and self worth. I have seen people self harm – colleagues and staff – and lost friends through suicide. I never become desensitised to this and hope I never will.

Although as a nurse I have to be dispassionate it is never easy to not ask myself could more have been done? Should more have been done? The nurse has feelings too. My lifetime’s work as a mental nurse has not only been confined to the hospital.

Many years ago I realised that my work needed to reach out to all areas of society if real change was to happen. Over the past 10 years I have spread the anti bullying message through the media, and promoted more understanding of mental health.

I have used my clinical knowledge and personal “lived experience” to de-stigmatise mental illness and encourage people to be more open and seek help at the earliest opportunity. This is particularly pertinent with young men who are statistically half less likely to visit their GPs for mental health concerns than women. Unfortunately, alcohol abuse, drugs, self harm and suicide is often the ‘coping’ mechanism of men to mental illness. Many are in denial and this denial can often be fatal.

It is with this in mind that I have tried to creatively tackle stigma and discrimination away from the usual clinical set up. To normalise mental health is to eradicate the myths and bring it out from the inner walls of the percieved ‘asylum’ It is all about encouraging people to view mental health as being no different to physical health, both sides of the same coin so to speak. More importantly neither working as effectively without the other, each influencing the other.

A long time ago I realised the power of the media to inform and form opinions, and challenge damaging stereotypes. I decided to focus my mental health anti stigma approach on tv, radio and in the newspapers. I advised the Zak Dingle ‘depression’ storyline in the TV soap opera Emmerdale to try to bring as much realism and sensitivity to the role as possible.

This work was well received by the viewers, yet there were still people who criticised me online, so called ‘keyboard warriors’ who challenged my views and questioned my knowledge and nursing experience. I had to quickly develop a thicker skin and told myself that even if people are critical, even if they are dismissive of what I do, at least it is encouraging discussion of mental health. it is bringing the subject into the open which is required to break down the myths and misconceptions. Often the criticism echoes people’s own inner fears about opening up. It is a struggle for them to acknowledge their own mental health immunity, especially in my own profession, particularly amongst men.

In spreading the anti-stigma message I have found myself in a range of diverse places. From the Houses of Parliament, universities and colleges across the country to the social clubs of the industrial north east where I live. The places may be different but the message remains the same. I have worked with scholars and gangsters, actors and musicians, writers and poets. Mental illness does not discriminate and any one of us could be the next victim. It does not respect sexual gender, social class, religion, ethnicity or culture. This is why my work has to reach out to all areas of society if it is to make a difference.

I am now liasing with the former MMA fighter Alex Reid to explore writing a book to reach out to men. Alex has also been on the receiving end of bullying through the media and we both share a passion to positively promote healthy mental and physical health. Maybe combining our life experiences will touch a chord with men? We are poles apart and yet we are so alike. We have both experienced bullying and both share a desire and determination to help others.

Alex’s world of MMA fighting attracts the kind of man I am trying to reach out to with my message. Men who dismiss mental illness or stress as being anathema to them and only affecting women. Physical strength and a ‘macho’ attitude to life is no defence against mental illness. I see a strength in men sharing their emotions and opening up about their feelings.

My own world of mental health nursing includes many men who are in denial of their own feelings and whose ‘big boys don’t cry’ outlook on life serves to perpetuate the stigma and misunderstanding of mental health even more.