Hi there,
I have been busy sorting through all the archive material here at the office. Interesting and dusty work! Lots of Beyond Diagnosis material, the national magazine that was a voice for people with mental health problems in Scotland during the 1990's.
I also met with Graham Morgan, who is a key person in the Lothian User Movement. Graham was involved with 'Awareness' a very early User Group in Edinburgh. He was also the first paid worker with CAPS whose role it was to set up a Lothian wide Users network. Graham was threfore invovled in LUF (Lothian Users Forum) as well as Beyond Diagnosis, SUN (Scottish Users Network) and many more such as ELIG (East Lothian Invovlement Group) and groups in West and Midlothian. It was fantastic to hear about the early days from Graham and I'd like to thank him for taking the time to talk to me. Although Graham is now based in Inverness with HUG, he has agreed to be interviewed for the oral history archive and is willing to come along to events in the future.
I am meeting with some other activists from the early days of the Movement in the next couple of weeks.
OMH has also been invited to the launch of the Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival in Glasgow on 10 September 2008. This is a great chance to meet with all the organisations involved and to find out about the 100 plus events that are happening across the country.
Well thats about it for now. Please get in touch if you want to find out more about OMH, if you have any old papers at home that you think might be good for the archive or you can think of any people who have been active in the User Movement that we should be speaking to. Phone Kirsten at CAPS on 0131 538 7177. Thanks.
Thursday 21 August 2008
Tuesday 12 August 2008
Thankyou to the Patient's Council
Hi there! Met with the Patient's Council yesterday. Thankyou to them for having me along. Everyone was really supportive and helpful. People began to think about contacts from early Patient's Council days. Maggie McIvor, Patient's Council Administrator, has a box file of archive material set aside which is fantastic! She has also written a short history of the Patient's Council. The group are happy for me to scan documents at their office to add into Lothian Archive. A member of the PC is going to sit on the Steering Group and I will also keep in touch with regular updates to the Management Committee and drop ins.
Thursday 7 August 2008
Welcome to Oor Mad History Blog!
Hello and welcome to our blog!
My name is Kirsten Maclean, I am a Community History Worker with Oor Mad History.
OMH is based at a project called CAPS (Consultation and Advocacy Promotion Service) in Edinburgh. CAPS provide an independent advocacy service, working with people who experience mental health problems.
In September of last year an event was held to coincide with a visit from David Reville, a Canadian mental health 'consumer' and academic. User groups from all over Lothian came to meet with David, who teaches a univeristy course in Mad People's History at Ryerson University in Toronto.
Service Users were inspired by this visit and began to think about what work could be done here around Service User History. A Steering Group was formed to put together a funding proposal to NHS. Funding was secured and a worker, myself, was recruited.
In the first two years we are putting together a Lothian Wide archive, both paper based (posters, leaflets etc) and an Oral History Archive of people who have been active in the Movement.
What happens then? Well we want to create resources based on the work done in the first two years, which can be used to celebrate the movement, train professionals and challenge the stigma still associated with mental health problems.
This is a hugely exciting project. We hope that it will raise the profile of the Service User Movement and highlight what has been achieved in the last 30 years. We hope to learn from the past and from each other and to take this learning forward into future campaigns. OMH will highlight the involvement of Service Users in the development of key services.
Are you or have you been involved with a User Group in Edinburgh or Lothians? Please get in touch! We want to hear from you!
Do you have any old leaflets, posters, minutes of meetings? Get in touch!
Interested? Want to find out more? Please comment here or email me at
kirsten@capsadvocacy.org
Thanks for reading...
My name is Kirsten Maclean, I am a Community History Worker with Oor Mad History.
OMH is based at a project called CAPS (Consultation and Advocacy Promotion Service) in Edinburgh. CAPS provide an independent advocacy service, working with people who experience mental health problems.
In September of last year an event was held to coincide with a visit from David Reville, a Canadian mental health 'consumer' and academic. User groups from all over Lothian came to meet with David, who teaches a univeristy course in Mad People's History at Ryerson University in Toronto.
Service Users were inspired by this visit and began to think about what work could be done here around Service User History. A Steering Group was formed to put together a funding proposal to NHS. Funding was secured and a worker, myself, was recruited.
In the first two years we are putting together a Lothian Wide archive, both paper based (posters, leaflets etc) and an Oral History Archive of people who have been active in the Movement.
What happens then? Well we want to create resources based on the work done in the first two years, which can be used to celebrate the movement, train professionals and challenge the stigma still associated with mental health problems.
This is a hugely exciting project. We hope that it will raise the profile of the Service User Movement and highlight what has been achieved in the last 30 years. We hope to learn from the past and from each other and to take this learning forward into future campaigns. OMH will highlight the involvement of Service Users in the development of key services.
Are you or have you been involved with a User Group in Edinburgh or Lothians? Please get in touch! We want to hear from you!
Do you have any old leaflets, posters, minutes of meetings? Get in touch!
Interested? Want to find out more? Please comment here or email me at
kirsten@capsadvocacy.org
Thanks for reading...
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