Rethink Mental Illness Manchester Group

Are you affected by mental illness and concerned about budget cuts proposed by Manchester City Council? We are working with Irwin Mitchell solicitors to identify any individuals who are concerned that they will be badly affected by the budget cuts proposed by Manchester City Council. You may be an adult who is: experiencing serious mental health problem or has a physical or learning disabilities and is in receipt of income support the carer of someone in this situation or the parent of a child with physical or learning disabilities or mental health problems. If you are concerned that the proposed cuts might affect the support you receive we would like to hear from you. If you would like to discuss your situation with Irwin Mitchell on an informal basis please contact Mathieu Culverhouse on 0161 838 2390 or by email . Any information you provide will be treated confidentially. As a group we provide a meeting space, support and information for anyone affected by severe mental illness. We...

Our next meeting takes place on Wednesday 9th March 2011, 6 – 7:45pm at Manchester Carers Centre , Vulcan Mill, Pollard Street, Manchester M4 7AN. If you are travelling by public transport or by foot, a ‘walking bus’ will leave from the taxi rank at Manchester Piccadilly station at 5:30pm. Please call me (Mary Patel) on 07816 754 032 to let me know you will be coming, so we know to wait for you. Agenda 6pm – 6.15pm: refreshments and welcomes. 6:15 – 6:30pm: introductions and general discussion. 6:30 – 6:50: Hemlata Fletcher from Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust will give an update on the Trust’s recovery work and answer questions. 6:50 – 7:10 : Zeph Curwen and Patrick Cahoon from Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust will give an update on the Trust’s review of day services and answer questions. 7:10 – 7:40: events and campaigns work over the next couple of months. 7:40 – 7:45: any other business.

Lots of events on at the moment. This one from NHS Manchester about an event that has been rearranged from 16th February to 3rd March: Dear Colleagues, Service Users and Carers Further to our first meeting which was held on 25th October at the Town Hall, we are now holding are second meeting this time at our offices at Parkway M2.1 (Boardroom) (map attached) on 3rd March from 14:30 - 16:30. We have arranged this meeting so that we can listen to your views about the development of the integrated Primary Care Mental Health Service in Manchester, as well as agree a way forward of directly involving users and carers in our decision making processes in the future. Refreshments will be available on the day, also please note that there is limited visitor parking at Parkway. If you would like to park here you must book in advance. Alternatively there are a number of buses from the city centre that stop outside, including the 101, 104, 105 and 109. If you park on surrounding streets please be c...

I'm slightly behind the times with this one, which was released over a week ago on 2nd February. But here it is. I don't claim to have read it and am going to cheat and use the government's own summary to describe it: "No health without mental health: a cross-Government mental health outcomes strategy for people of all ages represents a major step forward in mainstreaming mental health and supporting the Government's important aim of achieving parity of esteem between physical and mental health. It has been produced in collaboration with many of the Department's partner organisations. It will enable more decisions about people's mental health to be taken locally, and stresses the interconnections between mental health, housing, employment, and the criminal justice system. Supporting documents including an action plan for expanding talking therapies have also been published." You can download the full document from the Department of Health's website...

Just received details of an event you might be interested in. The event, which is free and open to everyone, is part of a series called 'Cafe Scientifique' which aims to foster a dialogue between scientists and the community. The one coming up is called 'Understanding Psychosis'. A professor of clinical psychology will give a short presentation, and then open up the floor for questions from the audience. Date:February 23rd 2011 Time: 6 pm Where: Krobar on Oxford road, corner of Dover street (note - NOT the one near the BBC but the one 10 minutes walk south) Title: Understanding psychosis Speaker: Tony Morrison What is this about? Many people have unusual experiences and beliefs, such as hearing voices, seeing visions or believing that others are trying to harm or control them or put thoughts into their head. Some people are troubled by such experiences; others are not. Can we understand why these experiences occur, why they are associated with distress and disability fo...

I've just skim read the Budget Proposals for Manchester City Council's Adults' Directorate , for 2011 / 12. Richard Leese, Leader of the Council, is quite clear that there will be some very, very hard cuts. With planned savings of £109m there's no way there wouldn't be. I'm very wary of drawing conclusions from a quick read of something, but here are the important bits that I could find relating to the provision of mental health services: Rates for mental health provision: projected saving in 2011/12 is £600,000; projected saving in 2012/13 is £600,000 - making a total projected saving over the next two years of £1.2 million. Ouch. Individual budgets (IBs)propose to restrict the cash IB offer, which will make efficiencies of £1.466m. Create an independent review team to promote independence and reduce dependency with savings identified as up to £1.92m. The budget settlement from central government reduces the Supporting People grant by 35% equating to a £12.6m r...

We're fortunate to have some fantastic third sector / civil society mental health organisations here in Manchester. One of these - YASP - which works with young people experiencing mental health problems, has just released a report about the huge challenges that young people accessing YASP services face. As well as drawing out the many difficulties that these young people including poverty, homelessness, debt and frequent harassment, young people talk about their difficult backgrounds including abuse, domestic violence and needing to seek asylum. Despite all of this, one of the biggest problem young people identify is loneliness. “It’s about lack of friends, lack of confidence, feeling singled out, paranoia about people, don’t know what people are thinking or thinking you are weird” – YASP Service User. “I have had no contact with my family in Angola and at first I was terribly homesick, and I still think a lot about things that happened to me in the past, but with the support and ...