New blog: Reach letters

Dear readers,

I have started posting at another blog where I publish my emails to REACH.

http://greysteppenwolfreachletters.blogspot.com/

Advocacy in the UK: Mental Illness Stigma Alive and Well in U.K.

From

http://psychcentral.com/news/2008/05/09/
mental-illness-stigma-alive-and-well-in-uk/2260.html

Friday, May 9 (Psych Central) -- manA new survey recently released by the U.K.’s Department of Health showed that 1 in 8 people would not want to live next door to someone with a mental illness.

Mental health charity Rethink has branded the findings on attitudes towards people with mental health problems as “shocking, ignorant, and unacceptable in today’s society.”

In addition to the 1-in-8 finding, the Department of Health’s survey data showed that:

* Nearly six out of ten people describe a person with a mental illness as “someone who has to be kept in a psychiatric or mental hospital”
* One third of people think that people with mental health problems should not have the same rights to a job as everyone else
* Only 31% of people think that mental hospitals are an outdated means of treating people

“These findings show just how bad the situation can be for people with mental health problems,” said Paul Corry, Rethink’s director of public affairs.

“Archaic, bigoted opinions about mental illness still prevail and clearly demonstrate the urgent need for action to change people’s views. It is particularly disappointing to see the deterioration in people’s tolerance towards people with mental illness.”

Rethink research for Moving People has found that nearly nine out of 10 people with mental health problems have been affected by stigma and discrimination, with two thirds saying they have stopped doing things because of the stigma they face.

Corry noted, “The Moving People anti-stigma campaign will lay firm foundations for ending mental health discrimination in the UK, but long term it is essential that the government plows hefty resources into tackling the problem, as has been done in Scotland and New Zealand. The government could also lead by example and employ more people with mental health problems within its departments, and encourage other public sector bodies to do the same.”

Janey Antoniou, who has schizophrenia, recalls one example of the stigma she encountered: “I had a neighbor who used to run inside when she saw me because she had seen me taken to the hospital by the police in my dressing gown. The fact that I’d walked down the road with a briefcase thousands of times seemed irrelevant.”

Rethink, on behalf of anti-stigma coalition group Moving People, is in the process of devising an anti-stigma marketing campaign which aims to reach 30 million people across England in an attempt to challenge attitudes and change behavior. The anti-stigma marketing campaign will be launched in January 2009.

If you're thinking about suicide, read this first

http://www.metanoia.org/suicide/spagebw.htm

Advocacy in the US: Rights for Imprisoned People with Psychiatric Disability

From

http://www.rippd.org/

Our Five Main Issues
RIPPD confronts a system set up to oppress people who have a mental illness and who have been in jail or prison. Despite the existing power structure, our organization has been able to gain respect from the “powers that be” and meet with judges, politicians, and other government officials and begin to achieve the policy changes that we seek. Through this work members develop leadership skills along with a greater understanding of the process involved in organizing for social change. Organizing is about more than the tasks at hand and the projected outcomes – it is also about the process that membership goes through as individuals unite and take action together. It is this process that empowers members and makes this work possible.

What Is Grassroots Social Justice Organizing? Click here.

* Increasing the availability of alternatives to incarceration for people with mental illness in the criminal justice system.
We know that people with mental illness belong in treatment not jail or prison.

* Eliminating the use of solitary confinement for people with psychiatric disabilities in prison.
No more SHU (“Special Housing Units”) for people with mental illness in prison! SHU is a small cell used as a disciplinary measure. People with mental illness are locked up 23 out of 24 hours each day.

* Improving mental health treatment inside jails and prisons.
We demand that consumers receive quality mental health treatment - a constitutional right of those imprisoned by the government.

* Guaranteeing discharge planning for people with mental illness released from jails and prisons.
People treated for mental illness in jail and prison are entitled to have a discharge plan and services in place when they are released. Despite the Brad H. settlement, this is not happening to the extent it is required. Few people with psychiatric disabilities leaving the State prisons receive adequate discharge planning.

* Ensuring more accountability and training for correction officers.
We know that correction officers need training in order to better understand imprisoned people who have mental illness. Even training cannot guarantee that officers will be dealt with appropriately when they abuse individuals in their custody; this is why we insist on accountability as well.

Mental fitness of maids

From http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2008/may/08/
yehey/opinion/20080508opi4.html

FROM THE SIDELINES
By Alfredo G. Rosario
Mental fitness for OFWs


On the recommendation of some Philippine embassies in the Middle East, the government has convened at least two meetings in Malacanang since January to look into ways of curtailing the deployment of physically and mentally unfit overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).

In those meetings, policy guidelines were adopted, ranging from increasing the age requirement of overseas-bound workers to rigid mental and psychological evaluation by the Department of Health.

On April 17, Foreign Undersecretary Esteban Conejos of migrant affairs called a meeting in his office to monitor the implementation of the guidelines. A representative of the labor department attended the conference.

The deployment of mentally-unfit and emotionally-disturbed Filipino workers has been a recurring headache to the country’s diplomatic missions not only in the Mideast but also in other regions.

When I was assigned to Singapore as labor attaché in 1985 to 1987, I came across cases of employers complaining against their Filipino maids for “strange behavior.” I sent at least two maids to Singapore’s mental hospital for treatment. Both eventually recovered and returned to the Philippines.

There was one instance when three maids were taken one after the other to the Philippine Embassy by their employers for alleged “mental problems.” There being no place where they could stay, I brought them home and gave them a place in the living room where they could rest and sleep.

One night, my family and I were roused from our sleep at about 2 a.m. when one of the maids screamed and tried to force her way into our bedroom. She complained that one of her bedfellows tried to strangle her. I later arranged for their repatriation to the Philippines.

In another instance, a maid came to the embassy to complain that the father of her employer had tried to molest her. I took her to the embassy’s welfare center. (This was the first ever welfare center set up by the labor department, on my recommendation, and inaugurated by then-President Corazon Aquino as the overseas workers’ “home away from home” during her state visit to Singapore in August 1986).

One evening, the maid tried to kill herself with a kitchen knife but other maids in the center were able to stop her. The following afternoon, she rushed out of the gate and tried to get into the path of a speeding taxi. Seeing her deteriorating condition, I took her to the Singapore General Hospital. On a Sunday morning, I got a call from the hospital that she had jumped to her death from a sixth-floor window.

The involvement of OFWs in the killing of their employers and members of their families may have been provoked by the extreme cruelty of their masters. But in some cases, the cause is traced to mental imbalance, exacerbated by culture shock.

At least 53 OFWs are facing the death penalty in various host countries for different crimes. Many are for possession of drugs but some for the killing of their fellow workers and members of their employers’ household.

The Philippine embassies in the Middle East have a good reason for seeking a stricter screening of OFWs to determine their mental fitness. Generally, medical clinics accredited by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) only perform physical examination on OFWs sent by licensed recruitment agencies.

The POEA should make it mandatory for these clinics to make a psychiatric examination of OFWs. No fitness certification shall be accepted unless it contains the result of a mental examination.