Safely Held Spaces are financially supporting CHARM in a learning and development process in Manchester to create a compassionate, empowering community focus to support people in extreme states (often called psychosis).

This project was formally launched in April 2024 with the employment of Hannah Cox, our Community Development Worker

We are asking these questions

“How can mental health practitioners and services switch to social and relationship-based support (away from biomedical approaches)?”

“How we can recognise the importance of and act on the social determinants of mental ill health? How we can address social justice and human rights within society?”

Aims

We will:

• create grassroots constituencies of support for people experiencing extreme mental and emotional distress and altered states (“psychosis”) and their social networks.
• develop awareness of compassionate, empowering, and community focused social justice approaches that address racial, gender and class inequities incorporating the principle of ‘nothing about us without us’
• have a  particular concern for those requiring ‘late – late intervention.

Actions

We achieve these aims through the following actions:

• Coordinate a grassroots, community enquiry and creative envisioning process with our communities to explore what eco-systems of support people with long term contact with services and their families need
• Build and develop relationships with organisations, initiatives and individuals in Manchester, the UK and internationally to enable us to learn about different approaches that may work in our local communities.
• Contribute to a joint online folder (with SHS and other mental health groups) of information (papers, talks, webinars, books, key people etc) on holistic compassion research and practices.
• Plan a learning and reflection process to expand theoretical, practical knowledge and experience in the field of new approaches to mental health that encourage holistic, whole person, recovery based ways of working to offer more hopeful and empowering alternatives. This will include social, dialogic and somatic approaches through online and in person discussions, workshops, exchanges and visits.
• We will be taking learning from Open Dialogue, the Trieste Recovery House and Learning Community, the Hearing Voices Approach with respect to democratic structures and the full participation of people at the centre of experience.
• Consciously embrace the imperative of an anti-racist practice and the need for emancipatory approaches.
• Create practical offerings to enable people to experience new ways of working and support the learning and development process, working alongside similar initiatives.
• Identify and deliver initial training and orientation for our proposed areas of work.
• Identify what eco-systems of support we might want to pilot. Develop pilot implementation plans and budgets and associated participatory research/evaluation plans and budgets for Manchester through a collaborative process including identifying appropriate research and evaluation partners
• Scoping of possible funding options – including agencies to whom we could submit funding bids, but also how we might creatively use existing funding possibilities, such as personal budgets, funding for carers to support some elements of our plans

Outcomes

What do we expect as outcomes?

• A legacy of communities, networks and partnerships will be formed to reflect on existing approaches to identify which approaches will work for Manchester.
• Delivery of pilot implementation plans for the different elements of our proposed eco-system of support
• Delivery of practical offerings in our communities to further the establishment of a holisitic, rights based, community response to people with long term contact with services.
• Identification and initial delivery of the most appropriate training and orientation that each of our proposed areas of work will need.
• Initial scoping of possible funding options and partnerships with other stakeholders.

Below is an outline programme of the work areas we have identified that will support the learning and development processes in Manchester to further the creation of a compassionate, empowering community focus in supporting people in extreme states.

Programme of work

Practical offerings – particularly focused on ‘late late interventions’ for people and their families

Developing Manchester Hearing Voices Network and Groups (online group, women’s group)
Aim: To see hearing voices approach embedded into mental health support offer including new groups/ training for people and families, including possible ongoing support groups for families National Hearing Voices Network – For people who hear voices, see visions or have other unusual perceptions (hearing-voices.org)

Gaining Autonomy with Medication
Aim: To increase knowledge of medication amongst people who are administered it and also allies and social networks
Aim: to train in the use of Gaining Autonomy in Medication (GAM) workbook leading to development of in person mutual support group. GuideREP-ANG_2014-04.pdf (rrasmq.com)

Working with trauma in the body – Somatic practice sharing
Aim: to explore somatic approaches to coping with extreme states, employing an approach that understands the political nature of somatics to address racialised trauma.