"Manifesto" for mental health survivor workers launched

January 1, 2003

It may have taken more than 18 months to achieve, but a landmark in the history of the mental health service user movement was reached just before Christmas with the publication of a document which some have hailed as a manifesto for mental health 'survivor' workers.

Stronger than Ever, a report part-sponsored by four groups including the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health, is based on the "First Survivor Worker Conference UK" in Manchester in June, 2001.

It is the first time that issues particular to (ex) service users working in mental health and social care have been collectively documented.

Authored by Rose Snow, a former user involvement development worker with Central Manchester Healthcare Trust, it is an official recording of the conference, attended by many of the most influential, charismatic and long-standing supporters of the service user movement over the last twenty years.

The 200 delegates also included user development workers, psychologists, senior managers and executives.

As an indication of how far the service user movement has matured, the 68 page report documents how mental health service users employed in health and social care are increasingly looking for the establishment of a national organisation dedicated to unifying and supporting their work.

An umbrella organisation should be created, the report suggests, to represent the needs of the ever-increasing number of (ex) service users working in mental health and social care.

The report proposes such an organisation could develop strategic vision and coordinate issues such as good practice, support in the workplace, leadership training, pay and trade union representation.

"At the moment survivor workers have no co-ordination, and the way forward now is to create such an organisation that is user-controlled," said Snow.

As is perhaps indicative of the perennial struggle service users report in having their collective voice acted upon, it was only because of the backing of a small not-for-profit publishing collective, Asylum, that "Stronger than Ever" ever came off a printers press.

It was originally due to be published by Handsell Publishing, a wing of mental health consultancy Keepwell Ltd which had been a pioneer in service-user led training and service provision and had a number of former service users as directors.

But when Keepwell went into liquidation in September last year, the conference would have remained just memories if Asylum had intervened.

Stronger than Ever is divided into three.

Snow begins by providing a short history of the 'survivor' movement and the ever-increasing power of service users in influencing service provision.

The main bulk of the report is a summary of the conference itself and its outcomes, findings and subsequent 22 recommendations.

The most pertinent of these to service providers is that managers should see survivor workers as a resource to assist the NHS and social care organisations in implementing its Changing Workforce Programme, which promotes "new ways to improve patient services" while tackling staff shortages.

Days after the launch of Stronger than Ever, this message was reinforced by Leeds University researchers reporting in the British Medical Journal that having service users as employees led to less hospitalisation of their psychiatric patient clients and that providers of services who had been trained by service users had more positive attitudes toward service users.

However, Stronger than Ever goes to pains to highlight examples of alleged discrimination of service user workers, and calls for, where needed, systems of support.

Prof Peter Beresford, director of the Citizens Participation Unit at Brunel University and a member of the conference steering group, said:

"It is wrong for senior managers just to be encouraged to grab service users without recognising there is a two way process.
"Service users are people who can work, but sometimes there will need to be flexibility in their employment, and they will need to be provided with support."

Snow's own conclusion is that survivor workers themselves should use the report as both validation and evidence to initiate new projects.

"Within this report survivor workers, volunteers and activists speak with a national voice…hopefully the implications will grow on people collectively, as well as individually," she writes.

"The survivor movement has created a mandate…to develop any of the issues contained in the report and interpret and develop those issues in a range of authentic, diverse and appropriate ways."

Stronger than Ever: Asylum publishing. Telephone 0161 718 6677. Email: tmclaughin@asylumonline.net

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