February 2017 Blog Posts (21)

Back to School: Toolkits to Support the Full Inclusion of Students with Early Psychosis in Higher Education

Over the past decade, interest and investment in specialty early intervention in psychosis (EIP) programs has greatly expanded across the United States. A major goal of EIP services is the functional recovery and community integration of emerging adults with first episode psychosis.

Many programs include dedicated supported education or vocational rehabilitation components. The recent (exponential) growth of such services means that many more young Americans will be encouraged and…

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Added by Jill Anderson on February 27, 2017 at 10:29 — No Comments

New resources on mental health, mental capacity and human rights

The British Institute of Human Rights has published three new guides on mental health, mental capacity and human rights. The booklets aim to empower people using services to advocate for their own human rights. BIHR have co-produced the booklets with six advocacy and support organisations, working together on a project called Care and Support: A Human Rights Approach to Advocacy.

My Human Rights contains information about what human rights are, which rights are most relevant for…

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Added by Jill Anderson on February 20, 2017 at 8:30 — No Comments

University Mental Health Day is on March 2nd

Keep an eye on the University Mental Health Day map to see what others are up to throughout the UK. Find out what's going on at your own university.  If there isn't an event, why not organise one?  University mental health day provides a great opportunity for developing and cementing links between people involved in teaching and learning about mental health and those working in student support services.  Register your event on the form at the foot of the page.…

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Added by Jill Anderson on February 15, 2017 at 18:37 — No Comments

Working with situations of coercive control - tools for supporting people

This website is for social workers and other health and social care practitioners to develop their knowledge and skills in working with situations of coercive control.

Coercive control is now recognised as the behaviour that underpins domestic abuse. It is a pattern of behaviour which seeks to take away the victim’s sense of self, minimising their freedom of action and violating their human rights.

The Serious Crime Act 2015 creates a new offence of controlling or…

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Added by Jill Anderson on February 15, 2017 at 9:00 — 3 Comments

Diagnostic Cultures A Cultural Approach to the Pathologization of Modern Life

Some studies estimate that each year, around a quarter of the population of Western countries will suffer from at least one mental disorder. Should this be interpreted as evidence for the progress of psychiatry, a discipline that is now able to identify and treat mental illnesses that have always existed, or might it be the case that modern life somehow creates new conditions, or social pathologies? This book argues that in fact something more fundamental has been taking place in…

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Added by Jill Anderson on February 14, 2017 at 1:20 — No Comments

Scholarship for the MSc Mental Health Recovery and Social Inclusion (online) course

The University of Hertfordshire School of Health and Social Work, Department of Nursing (Children’s, Learning Disability and Mental Health) and Social Work is very pleased to offer two applicants for the MSc Mental Health Recovery and Social Inclusion (online) course, who have lived experience of mental distress, a scholarship for the course fees commencing in the academic year 2017-2018.

The scholarship is in recognition that mental health challenges can interrupt the progress of…

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Added by Jill Anderson on February 13, 2017 at 19:17 — No Comments

Mad Ethics - special issue of the Journal of Ethics and Mental Health [C4P]

Mental health service users/refusers have always confronted ethical dilemmas in the legal, medical, socio-political and economic regimes that administer our lives. This special issue invites theoretical, empirical, and community-informed papers that critically explore ethical queries in contemporary mental health practice. 

Read the CALL FOR PAPERS

Added by Jill Anderson on February 13, 2017 at 15:37 — No Comments

Social Perspectives Network

The AGM of SPN is taking place at 1.45 pm on Monday 20th February at Resource for London,, Seminar Room 1, 356 Holloway Road, London N7 6PA. See here for further details.

Added by Jill Anderson on February 11, 2017 at 19:34 — No Comments

HEA Health and Social Care: Forthcoming events

Higher Education Academy Health and Social Care events.

Practice Education Special Interest Group

29 March, 2017

HEA York

Grow Your Skills: Using Creative Approaches to Health and Social Care Professions Learning

Wednesday, 26 April, 2017 - 10:00

HEA York

Grow Your Skills: Getting to Grips with Competence Assessment

Thursday, 4 May, 2017 - 09:00

HEA York

Stepping into Programme Management: Student Professional Suitability and Fitness…

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Added by Jill Anderson on February 11, 2017 at 19:25 — No Comments

PROJECTIONS: Cinematic representations of mental illness

This six week evening course may be of interest to those within reach of the Freud museum in London.

Guy de Maupassant once said, “A sick thought can devour the body's flesh more than fever or consumption.” Mental illness is one of the leading causes of the overall disease burden worldwide. Depression, anxiety and substance abuse are reported to be among the main drivers of disability in Western countries. It is estimated that one in six adults has suffered from a common mental…

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Added by Jill Anderson on February 11, 2017 at 19:00 — No Comments

The Sedated Society - new book

'This edited volume provides an answer to a rising public health concern: what drives the over prescription of psychiatric medication epidemic? Over 15% of the UK public takes a psychiatric medication on any given day, and the numbers are only set to increase. Placing this figure alongside the emerging clinical and scientific data revealing their poor outcomes and the harms these medications often cause, their commercial success cannot be explained by their therapeutic efficacy.…

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Added by Jill Anderson on February 11, 2017 at 18:56 — No Comments

Professor Sir David Watson Award for Community University Partnerships - now open for applications.

These awards have been created in memory of Professor Sir David Watson, to honour his leadership in encouraging community-university engagement and recognise the combined efforts of community and university partners towards making a difference to the lives of people in their shared community.

Community-university engagement is still an emerging field, which can make establishing and developing effective partnerships between community movements and academics difficult. Each year, the…

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Added by Jill Anderson on February 11, 2017 at 18:39 — No Comments

Exceptional and Extraordinary - unruly bodies and minds in the medical museum

Why are some lives more highly valued than others?

Since humans first appeared on Earth, no two have ever been the same. Yet somewhere along the way, certain bodies and minds came to be highly valued whilst others became viewed as problematic; as deviant and unruly, deficient and requiring adjustment towards a perceived idealised norm.

Exceptional & Extraordinary invited four artists to explore behind the scenes of eight of the UK’s renowned medical museums and – in…

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Added by Jill Anderson on February 11, 2017 at 16:08 — No Comments

The role of pets in supporting people living with mental distress

(Where) does this issue feature in professional education for health and social care?



There is surprisingly little evidence of the role that pets play in the lives of people living with mental distress, despite some acknowledgement of their social support role and, increasingly, of the potential for Animal Assisted Therapy.

This research aimed to fill this gap through exploring the role of pets in people’s overall support networks, and the contribution they make to people’s…

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Added by Jill Anderson on February 10, 2017 at 18:00 — No Comments

Should I tell my students I have depression?

Interesting New York Times article HERE.

Any responses to this? Further reading?

Added by Jill Anderson on February 10, 2017 at 17:15 — No Comments

Webinar on Open Dialogue - the collaborative pathway approach

This may be of interest to educators and to students.



Six years ago, Dr. Chris Gordon, medical director of Advocates Inc., a large community mental health organization in Massachusetts, set out to train in Open Dialogue practices, which had produced such good long-term outcomes for first-episode psychotic patients in Northern Finland. Advocates developed the first pilot project in the country, which they called the Collaborative Pathway, to adapt these methods in the United…

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Added by Jill Anderson on February 10, 2017 at 17:00 — No Comments

Beyond the risk paradigm in mental health policy and practice - new book

Due out in April.

'Modern society is increasingly preoccupied with fears for the future and the idea of preventing ‘the worst’. The result is a focus on attempting to calculate the probabilities of adverse events occurring – in other words, on measuring risk. Since the 1990s, the idea of risk has come to dominate policy and practice in mental health across the USA, Australasia and Europe.

In this timely new text, a group of international experts examines the ways in which the…

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Added by Jill Anderson on February 10, 2017 at 10:00 — No Comments

Nature as Medicine - planned documentary

'Nature as Medicine' is a planned new documenatry about the healing power of nature.  This film will discover innovative people, projects and perspectives across health care and education, science, and art .  It will show how people can recover faster and learn better with the simple and innovative introduction of a Nature connection. This cinematic documentary will enable viewers to experience a deeper film experience of Nature through powerful, inspiring images and diverse interviews,…

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Added by Jill Anderson on February 8, 2017 at 18:30 — No Comments

Mental health, uncertainty and inevitablility: new book

This book offers original knowledge, debate, and understanding from frontline fieldwork data and explores the relations between mental health difficulties, mental healthcare provision, and social theory.

Dominant discourse of the last half century has followed a medical perspective. This has marginalised contributions from social science. Furthermore purely medical approaches to mental healthcare have profound shortcomings. This book draws upon innovative research findings to…

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Added by Jill Anderson on February 8, 2017 at 14:00 — No Comments

BBC Season of films on mental health

The BBC is to host a season of films around mental health this spring across TV, radio and online.

Programming will include a BBC One documentary on stress and a two-parter on runners affected by mental health issues preparing for the London Marathon, a Horizon BBC Two special about schizophrenia and advancements in the treatment of psychoses and a documentary from mental health campaign Jack Rooke for BBC Three.

“One in four of us experience mental health problems in any given…

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Added by Jill Anderson on February 5, 2017 at 11:41 — No Comments

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Blog Posts

QMU launches the world's first Masters in Mad Studies

Posted by Jill Anderson on December 1, 2020 at 11:50 0 Comments

Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh is launching the world’s first master’s degree in Mad Studies. The MSc Mad Studies course is primarily a course for graduates with lived experience of mental health issues. It has been hailed by a leading international Mad Studies academic as the most exciting piece of curriculum development in the last 20 years!

Mad Studies is a recognised academic discipline that explores the knowledge and actions that have grown…

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Unlearning through Mad Studies: disruptive pedagogical praxis

Posted by Jill Anderson on October 26, 2020 at 19:00 0 Comments

Medical discourse currently dominates as the defining framework for madness in educational praxis. Consequently, ideas rooted in a mental health/illness binary abound in higher learning, as both curriculum content and through institutional procedures that reinforce structures of normalcy. While madness, then, is included in university spaces, this inclusion proceeds in ways that continue to pathologize madness and disenfranchise mad people.

This paper offers Mad…

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Stepchange: mentally healthy universities

Posted by Jill Anderson on October 16, 2020 at 15:48 0 Comments

Earlier this year, UUK published a refreshed version of its strategic framework, Stepchange: mentally healthy universities, calling on universities to prioritise the mental health of their students and staff by taking a whole university approach to mental health.

The Stepchange approach and shared set of principles inform the …

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Think Ahead gets funding to boost its intake.

Posted by Jill Anderson on October 16, 2020 at 15:41 0 Comments

Fast-track mental health social work provider Think Ahead will expand its intake by 60% from next year following a government funding boost of at least £18m.

The Department of Health and Social Care has agreed a contract with Think Ahead to increase the number of trainees for its 2021 and 2022 cohorts from 100 to 160, with…

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Transforming Mental Health Social Work videos

Posted by Jill Anderson on October 16, 2020 at 15:39 0 Comments

Health Education England has commissioned 11 videos centered on real-life experience of specialists in the social work field.

See the video playlist.

Transforming mental health social work - conference report

Posted by Jill Anderson on October 16, 2020 at 15:37 0 Comments

In February 2020 Health Education England and Skills for Care put on two major conferences about the role and development of mental health social work. 

Download the conference report.

Leadership in mental health social work - web pages

Posted by Jill Anderson on October 16, 2020 at 15:33 0 Comments

A section of the Skills for Care website has been developed for mental health social workers and AMHPs

View the web pages here.

Social work education and training in mental health, addictions and suicide: a scoping review protocol

Posted by Jill Anderson on October 16, 2020 at 15:29 1 Comment

Social workers are among the largest group of professionals in the mental health workforce and play a key role in the assessment of mental health, addictions and suicide. Most social workers provide services to individuals with mental health concerns, yet there are gaps in research on social work education and training programmes. The objective of this open access scoping review is to examine literature on social work education and training in mental health, addictions and…

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Mental health nurse education: perceptions, access and the pandemic

Posted by Jill Anderson on October 16, 2020 at 15:25 0 Comments

With World Mental Health Day this Saturday, a new Nuffield Trust report discusses how more people might be attracted to apply to study mental health nursing, and the reasons why they might currently be less likely to do so.

Co-author Claudia Leone picks out some  key findings.

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