Tomorrow we fly back home. It has been a week we will never forget! Thankyou so much to David Reville and Kathryn Church for hosting us so magnificently. Also thankyou to all the many inspiring people we have met over the week.
Talking of inspiring people, let me tell you about some we have met the last two days...
On Thursday we had the privilige to meet Geoff Reaume and Mel Starkman who are responsible for the Toronto Pscychiatric Survivors Archives, the equivalent of the archive we are trying to create in Lothian. It was just so great to hear them talk about how the archive got started and the richness of the collections they have. They are currently developing a finding tool/catalogue so we will keep in touch with them and see this when it is complete.
Issues this discussion brought up for Oor Mad History were around deposit and community ownership. Also powerful for was Geoff telling us about the Wall, part of the old asylum wall built by the forced labour of patients, now a memorial to the lives of those who have been incarcerated there. Although some people would like to see the wall demolished, Geoff firmly believes it should stand as testimony to the harsh reality of psychiatric hospitals. He believes without physical actual reminders, it is easier to gloss over or sweeten difficult, painful histories. He has run 70 public tours of the wall to communicate it's story.
We then rushed off to a meeting at the Chang School of Continuing Education. David has made a short film of clips from interviews with survivors (many of whom we have met this week) on the topic of "Identity and Self Labelling". The meeting was to showcase documentary film as an example of good practice and to showcase it's potential in e-learning. We met the Dean of Ryerson University at this meeting.
After that Steve and I attended a meeting around the potential of setting up an international Mad People's History course - either developing a course in Scotland using Ryerson framework or an international e-learning course being developed by the Ryerson course constuctors.
We had a wonderful lunch on campus, where we were joined by Patricia one of the stars of Working Like Crazy. Patricia now works for the Ontario Council of Alternative Businesses.
On Friday our day started with meeting Jiji Veronka, who is Ryerson trained, a survivor, ex-street kid who now works for the Mental Welfare Commission of Canada. This talk was fascinating and gave insights into the complexities of being a survivor in this context.
Kathryn then talked to us about the exhibition she curated with two other women, "Out From Under". This was an exhibition that came out of a short course about disability and museum curation where the course participants were asked to bring along one item that represented their story. This created a very powerful exhibition of the objects and the context. The exhibition ran at the Royal Ontario Museum and they also did a lot of research with visitors to the exhibition and how they reacted to it. Kathryn has just found out that they have the go ahead to take the exhibition to Vancouver next year for the Paralympics.
We then had a debrief at Kathryn's loft, where we talked about the high points (too many to count!) of the week and action points of how we take this forward. For me there was a huge amount of learning around the archive from Mel and Geoff, also a much better understanding of David's course and how we might work towards a Mad People's History course in Lothian. I've also learnt a lot about the parallels with CAMH and the Royal Edinburgh Hospital and I believe there is potential for a lot of knowledge exchange there, in particular around peer support, survivor recruitment and survivor run organisations within the hospital, between Empowerment Council in CAMH and Patients Council in Edinburgh and very much around the reprovisioning experinces of both places.
I was delighted to be given a wonderful gift of Pat Capponi's book "Last Stop Sunnyside" - a crime novel set deep in the heart of the Toronto Survivor community. This will be a great addition to our archive.
So, it's our last night. Tomorrow we fly back. What a week! It has been such an amazing opportunity for Oor Mad History. I hope that we can continue to build on this exciting partnership and this is the start of many more conversations.
Sunday 8 November 2009
Friday 6 November 2009
Day 4 - Inspiring Meeting with Geoff and Mel from Toronto Psychiatric Survivors Archives
Hello from Toronto! This morning we had the privilige to meet with Mel Starkman and Geoffrey Reaume who founded the Toronto Pshychiatric Archives.
It was very moving to meet them and also to talk to people involved in gathering together a history of the service user/survivor movement archive as we are.
Mel said he had the idea of an archive of the Survivor Movement back in the 1980's. Both Mel and Geoff talked about the rich collections they have within the archives and the catalogue they are working on right now. They have been given some fascinating donations.
We heard about the public events that they have held and also about the Queen Street Wall which was built by patients of the original asylum and now stands as a memorial to the histories of the people who were inpatients there. Geoff talked passionately about the wall and how they use it as a way to engage the public with the history of the survivor community. He has run around 70 tours of the wall and there is a plaque on the wall which includes a number to call for an audio version of the tour. This wall will be protected in the current reprovisioning of CAMH. Some people would like to see the wall demolished, even people within the surivivor community as it is an example of forced labour and of a time some would rather forget. Geoff argues that is must stay standing as without it the history of these people is lost, nothing is left. Also the history of mental hospitals can be "saccarined" or made sweeter (mostly by staff) and with a physical memorial like this there is no denying the exploited labour of ex-patients. This wall is a powerful testimony to history of psychiatric surivors in Toronto. It struck parallels with the current reprovisioning of the Royal Edinburgh hospital and how we honour the history of past patients within this.
Geoff and Mel also talked about the Lakeshore Cemetery project, where volunteers are restoring a cemetery of unmarked graves that was discovered near a local asylum. This also had parallels for me of the unmarked graves found near Bangour Village Hospital in West Lothian. I believe there are around 1000 graves there, and one can only wonder how many there are throughout the whole of Scotland.
This meeting was very profound for me and reinforced the importance of what we are doing at Oor Mad History.
After this meeting we went to the Wang Building of Continuing Education. There was a premier of a short film made up of the interviews David has recently done with survivor activists. This film is to be used on the online version of Mad Peoples History. The focus on this film was on "Self Labelling and Identity" and it had a tremendous response from the audience, including the Dean of Continuing Education. Steve Tilley and I then joined David and Kathryn in a meeting with Continuing Education course construction workers which was very interesting. We heard about the potential for e-learning to engage students in an innovative way, almost more successfully than in the physical classroom. We hope this is the beginning of an exciting conversation around the development of an international course on Mad People's History or a course we can develop locally in Lothian based on the model here.
At lunch we were joined by Pat who was one of the stars of Working Like Crazy. It was really great to see her. Patricia works at the Ontario Council for Alternative Businesses.
What a day!!
It was very moving to meet them and also to talk to people involved in gathering together a history of the service user/survivor movement archive as we are.
Mel said he had the idea of an archive of the Survivor Movement back in the 1980's. Both Mel and Geoff talked about the rich collections they have within the archives and the catalogue they are working on right now. They have been given some fascinating donations.
We heard about the public events that they have held and also about the Queen Street Wall which was built by patients of the original asylum and now stands as a memorial to the histories of the people who were inpatients there. Geoff talked passionately about the wall and how they use it as a way to engage the public with the history of the survivor community. He has run around 70 tours of the wall and there is a plaque on the wall which includes a number to call for an audio version of the tour. This wall will be protected in the current reprovisioning of CAMH. Some people would like to see the wall demolished, even people within the surivivor community as it is an example of forced labour and of a time some would rather forget. Geoff argues that is must stay standing as without it the history of these people is lost, nothing is left. Also the history of mental hospitals can be "saccarined" or made sweeter (mostly by staff) and with a physical memorial like this there is no denying the exploited labour of ex-patients. This wall is a powerful testimony to history of psychiatric surivors in Toronto. It struck parallels with the current reprovisioning of the Royal Edinburgh hospital and how we honour the history of past patients within this.
Geoff and Mel also talked about the Lakeshore Cemetery project, where volunteers are restoring a cemetery of unmarked graves that was discovered near a local asylum. This also had parallels for me of the unmarked graves found near Bangour Village Hospital in West Lothian. I believe there are around 1000 graves there, and one can only wonder how many there are throughout the whole of Scotland.
This meeting was very profound for me and reinforced the importance of what we are doing at Oor Mad History.
After this meeting we went to the Wang Building of Continuing Education. There was a premier of a short film made up of the interviews David has recently done with survivor activists. This film is to be used on the online version of Mad Peoples History. The focus on this film was on "Self Labelling and Identity" and it had a tremendous response from the audience, including the Dean of Continuing Education. Steve Tilley and I then joined David and Kathryn in a meeting with Continuing Education course construction workers which was very interesting. We heard about the potential for e-learning to engage students in an innovative way, almost more successfully than in the physical classroom. We hope this is the beginning of an exciting conversation around the development of an international course on Mad People's History or a course we can develop locally in Lothian based on the model here.
At lunch we were joined by Pat who was one of the stars of Working Like Crazy. It was really great to see her. Patricia works at the Ontario Council for Alternative Businesses.
What a day!!
Thursday 5 November 2009
Mad Toronto visit - Days 2 and 3
Hi there! Well we have had another two jam packed days. There is just so much to learn here, so many parallels. Let me give you a rundown of where we have been and who we have met...
Yesterday began with attending the biggest mental health conference in Ontario. This was in a major downtown hotel and David managed to get us tickets, which ordinarily would cost $300 per day. The title of the course was "Making Gains in Mental Health" and it was a three day event. We heard Mary Walsh, a Canadian survivor and comic who was very cutting and funny. Next was the panel David was chairing on Poverty and Mental Health and Addictions. There was a panel of experts in the field including the first representative of the Canadian Medical Association, which was a big deal. Jeoff Turnball from CMA talked of poverty as a predictor of health and how it is a human rights issue. This rights issue was picked up by another panel member from Quebec who has been working on poverty legistlation. There were two representatives from Voices from the Street" who both had lived experience of mental health issues and homelessness. They talked about how poverty "steals from your soul, robs you off all good. Life becomes a daily struggle and you become a non person". He said poverty needs investment and the reivew of the system (benefits/social assistance)must be bold. He urged for more peer support and how the system does not encourage people off welfare.
One of the comments was from Becky MacFarlane, a survivor who also works at OCAB (Ontario Council fro Alternative Businesses). She said the whole system prioritises service provision, rather than including people in making the services better. She also said we need more peer support and that we need to employ survivors in organisations not jusst in a tokenistic way. Another delegate talked of the discrimination in emergency rooms/hospitals and how this needs to be a reportable offence. Another delegate talked powerfully of the First Nations experience of poverty in Canada.
We had a chance to meet a number of people and then we headed off to the Raging Spoon Cafe, a survivor run cafe, for lunch. WOW!! What a place!!! It has been redecorated since "Working Like Crazy" and is a very stylish space. We met Liz the manager and Becky her assistance. We also met Michael who runs the catering side of the business. We had a fantastic lunch there and it was just so great to be there after seeing it in the film.
After lunch David drove us to the Centre for Addictions and Mental Health (CAMH) which is the main mental health hospital in Toronto. The site is massive and is undergoing a reprovisioning (sound familiar???) They have already closed some buildings. David gave us a tour as we went past - including the original wall that was built by survivors of bricks from the old asylum. There was also two old buildings, the only remaining buildings from the asylum.
We walked through the corridors and came to the EMPOWERMENT COUNCIL office (I suppose this is the equivalent of our Patients' Councils) There we met Lucy Costa who is the SYSTEMIC advocacy worker there. We had never heard this term before, it is similar to collective advocacy in that it deals with macro rather than micro issues. I beliveve some of the issues the Empowerment Council deals with have recently been around construction a Patients Bill of RIGHTS, medication issues and a big issue at the moment is the law and judicial system. Lucy is also who set up the Mad Students Society so it was exciting to meet her. We also met by Diana Caponi (who was in Working Like Crazy, at that time she worked for The Ontario Council of Alternative Businesses) Diana now works at CAMH in HR and part of her remit is to facilitate the recruitment of survivors into CAMH. She is developing the peer suppport programme at CAMH and also was involved in the redevelopment of a major space within the hospital.
We had a fascinating talk with Lucy and Diana and also toured an exhibition in the hospital about the history of the asylum and the opening of CAMH and now the future development plans. We were also given a tour of the space Diana was involved in redevloping, The Mall, which used to be horrible canteen likened by Diana to a prison canteen. It is now an inspiring and wonderful space. There is a piece of a wooden spiral staircase saved from the old asylum mounted on the conceret wall which was very effective. There is internet access for patients (unsupervised, which was a huge coup apparantly) lovely chairs and tables and plants. There is the Out of This World Cafe which is one of the most successful survivor run businesses in Toronto. There is also a survivor run information centre which we thought was totally fantastic.
Today, Day 3, was action packed also! We were given a talk by Jen Poole (a self described "Mad prof" in Social Work) and Jenna Reid who is a Mad masters student in social work at Ryerson. They are currently doing research into the experience of mad students and have as part of a pilot project interviewed 8 students and are now at the data analysis stage. It was very interesting to hear about this.
We then went back to the Raging Spoon for lunch, again delicious. Adrienne and I then interviewed Michael, the Catering Manager about his work. This included a run down of his responsibilites, challenges in managing a team of survivors and the impact working here has had on him.
After this we hot tailed it to A-Way Express, another surivor business featured in Working Like Crazy. We were all very star struck meeting all these Mad Film Stars! We were met with very warm hospitality and had a coffee in their welcoming kitchen/lounge complete with a tank full of turtles. We were given the exciting news that since Working Like Crazy A Way are now expanding further and are wanting to move and set up another business. They are moving soon to a new building, a church with huge floor space and will set up a Gallery/Cafe and also have extended space for A-Way. This was so exciting to hear.
We were shown a new DVD made about AWay and were kindly given a copy. We were also able to ask questions about Away and were given an excellent tour of the premesis. A Way has been in operation for 22 years and we saw them at a critical point in their history, just before they move to their new premisis and begin a new chapter.
I'd just like at this stage to say a HUGE THANKYOU to everyone we have met so far, of course especially David and Kathryn, those who arranged ticket for the conference, Liz, Chelsea and Michael at The Spoon, Diana and Lucy at CAMH, Jen Poole and Jenna for their talk and Laurie, Tim, Hazel, Jim at A-Way. Phew! I hope I haven't missed someone out!
Tuesday 3 November 2009
Day One - tour of Ryerson campus (complete with black squirrels!) , David's lecture
Hi! We've just had our first full day in Toronto and what a day it has been! Dr Kathryn Church met us at our hotel and took us on a tour of the neighbourhood. Ryerson University, where David and Kathryn teach, is basically a block away from our hotel so we are very close to the campus. It is a buzzing, vibrant university.
Kathryn walked us to David Reville's History of Madness lecture at Ryerson at 1pm. This was the second of two part lecture on the history of the Consumer/Survivor/Ex-patient movement in Toronto. It was very exciting to be in a classroom with this knowledge being taught. His delivery was excellent and he succinctly put across some quite complex layers of theory, anecdote, chronological history, politicising of madness and personal experience which was a powerful combination.
The first hour of the lecture was a slide show on the history of movement. Obviously we were coming in on the second part, but it was fascinating just to see how the material is transmitted to the students. So, the first half was a lecture on the theories of the movement, of user involvement, which was the lead in to a showing of Working Like Crazy as an illustration of the issues led in the first half. There is a discussion group later in the week for students to talk about issues raised in the film and also an online "blackboard" where David posts all the lecture material, a transcript of the lecture, supplementary material and he also asked them to post a comment on what they thought was the funniest part of the film.
So back to the first hour. David talked about his theory of the "six tables" as a way of looking at the survivor movement: Setting the table, turning over the tables, Getting a seat at the table, Getting tables of our own, making tables and selling them, analysing our critique. He was focusing on the last three in this lecture. He illustrated "making tables of our own" with consumer survivor initiatives/CSI's (user groups/organisations) and gave a run down of the chronology of such organisations from the Mental Patients Association in Vancouver in 1970- 1971 (very similar time to the Scottish Union of Mental Patients, 1971/2) and the Ontario Mental Patients Association in Toronto in 1977. He said that by 1988 there were only 9 groups in the whole of Canada. I could see similarities there to how we are tracking the chronlogical history of user groups/organisations in Lothian.
David talked through some examples of CSI's includin PACE (People Advocacting Change from Empowerment) which I believe offers a crisis support service and he also mentioned the survivor organisation, Sound Times. David also linked the past with the present and the future by saying how CSI's were recognised as best practice in 1997 and how he hoped the new Canadian Mental Health Commission will invest in CSI's. Currently the Commission has been set up to deal with solving the current mental health crisis and they are doing a lot of research.
David then moved on to talk about "making tables and selling them" which he illustrated by talking about survivor run businesses like the ones we see in Working Like Crazy. He talked about the history of survivor run businesses in Ontario, which goes back the Mad Market (a flea market) set up in 1981 and also businesses like the Raging Spoon Cafe and A Way couriers who we see in Working Like Crazy. He also talks about the newest business "Out of this World" cafe based at the Centre for Addictions and Mental Health. There are at the moment 11 businesses in Ontario, employing 800 survivors. This is "using the economy to build community".
David then went on to talk about the last table "Tabling our critique". He discussed LINDA MORRISSON, a survivor sociologist who wrote a book called "Talking Back to Psychiatry".
Linda also researched survivor narratives and wrote, I believe a book/paper called "Heroic Survivor Narrative". This stood out as a very interesting part of the lecture for me as it helped theorise/analyse the process of becoming an activist in the survivor movement and resonated with me from the material gathered from the Oor Mad History interviews.
David also illustrated Linda Morrison's model this with powerful comments from his own experience of forced treatment at the hands of the system. He said you quickly find out the only way to get out of hospital is to "pretend to be normal and to shut your mouth". You quickly realise you don't have power, so you act normal to get out. Then you realise it's not just you "who is being jerked around". Then from this shared experience you demand change.
He also gave the students several examples of survivor narratives, including Pat Capponi who has recently been trying to get her message out by writing crime fiction where the sleuths are mad people! Must get copies of her books!
David then led the students into Working Like Crazy, saying that the film illustrated the Six Tables. He talked a bit about the history of work placements and training in Canada for people with mental health issues and how inadequate and directionless they were. This allowed him to discuss how survivors set up alternatives - Turned over the table and created their own services. He explained how WLC is a critique of how we view mad people, and that it challenges us to see mad people as more than patients - but as people who "laugh and love and work".
I thought the lecture was fantastic. I also thought what was interesting was that it is offered as a Liberal Arts Elective, so students from all disciplines can take it. So you have students in nursing, journalism, engineering.... We had a very interesting discussion (among a million other discussions) about the pros and cons of this in the debrief session afterwards in Timothy's coffee house!
What a great day, roll on day two! I'm going to try and upload some photographs we took today, so will try to add these to the blog too. Cheers!
Kathryn walked us to David Reville's History of Madness lecture at Ryerson at 1pm. This was the second of two part lecture on the history of the Consumer/Survivor/Ex-patient movement in Toronto. It was very exciting to be in a classroom with this knowledge being taught. His delivery was excellent and he succinctly put across some quite complex layers of theory, anecdote, chronological history, politicising of madness and personal experience which was a powerful combination.
The first hour of the lecture was a slide show on the history of movement. Obviously we were coming in on the second part, but it was fascinating just to see how the material is transmitted to the students. So, the first half was a lecture on the theories of the movement, of user involvement, which was the lead in to a showing of Working Like Crazy as an illustration of the issues led in the first half. There is a discussion group later in the week for students to talk about issues raised in the film and also an online "blackboard" where David posts all the lecture material, a transcript of the lecture, supplementary material and he also asked them to post a comment on what they thought was the funniest part of the film.
So back to the first hour. David talked about his theory of the "six tables" as a way of looking at the survivor movement: Setting the table, turning over the tables, Getting a seat at the table, Getting tables of our own, making tables and selling them, analysing our critique. He was focusing on the last three in this lecture. He illustrated "making tables of our own" with consumer survivor initiatives/CSI's (user groups/organisations) and gave a run down of the chronology of such organisations from the Mental Patients Association in Vancouver in 1970- 1971 (very similar time to the Scottish Union of Mental Patients, 1971/2) and the Ontario Mental Patients Association in Toronto in 1977. He said that by 1988 there were only 9 groups in the whole of Canada. I could see similarities there to how we are tracking the chronlogical history of user groups/organisations in Lothian.
David talked through some examples of CSI's includin PACE (People Advocacting Change from Empowerment) which I believe offers a crisis support service and he also mentioned the survivor organisation, Sound Times. David also linked the past with the present and the future by saying how CSI's were recognised as best practice in 1997 and how he hoped the new Canadian Mental Health Commission will invest in CSI's. Currently the Commission has been set up to deal with solving the current mental health crisis and they are doing a lot of research.
David then moved on to talk about "making tables and selling them" which he illustrated by talking about survivor run businesses like the ones we see in Working Like Crazy. He talked about the history of survivor run businesses in Ontario, which goes back the Mad Market (a flea market) set up in 1981 and also businesses like the Raging Spoon Cafe and A Way couriers who we see in Working Like Crazy. He also talks about the newest business "Out of this World" cafe based at the Centre for Addictions and Mental Health. There are at the moment 11 businesses in Ontario, employing 800 survivors. This is "using the economy to build community".
David then went on to talk about the last table "Tabling our critique". He discussed LINDA MORRISSON, a survivor sociologist who wrote a book called "Talking Back to Psychiatry".
Linda also researched survivor narratives and wrote, I believe a book/paper called "Heroic Survivor Narrative". This stood out as a very interesting part of the lecture for me as it helped theorise/analyse the process of becoming an activist in the survivor movement and resonated with me from the material gathered from the Oor Mad History interviews.
David also illustrated Linda Morrison's model this with powerful comments from his own experience of forced treatment at the hands of the system. He said you quickly find out the only way to get out of hospital is to "pretend to be normal and to shut your mouth". You quickly realise you don't have power, so you act normal to get out. Then you realise it's not just you "who is being jerked around". Then from this shared experience you demand change.
He also gave the students several examples of survivor narratives, including Pat Capponi who has recently been trying to get her message out by writing crime fiction where the sleuths are mad people! Must get copies of her books!
David then led the students into Working Like Crazy, saying that the film illustrated the Six Tables. He talked a bit about the history of work placements and training in Canada for people with mental health issues and how inadequate and directionless they were. This allowed him to discuss how survivors set up alternatives - Turned over the table and created their own services. He explained how WLC is a critique of how we view mad people, and that it challenges us to see mad people as more than patients - but as people who "laugh and love and work".
I thought the lecture was fantastic. I also thought what was interesting was that it is offered as a Liberal Arts Elective, so students from all disciplines can take it. So you have students in nursing, journalism, engineering.... We had a very interesting discussion (among a million other discussions) about the pros and cons of this in the debrief session afterwards in Timothy's coffee house!
What a great day, roll on day two! I'm going to try and upload some photographs we took today, so will try to add these to the blog too. Cheers!
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