Canada Calling!

The big news here is that the project funding has been extended until December 2010. NHS Lothian have agreed to us developing a book with accompanying CD and also holding a big public exhibition in October 2010 to coincide with the Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival. What fantastic news!!

The other big news is myself and an OMH volunteer are going on a rearch trip to Toronto next week. This will be a once in a lifetime opportunity to learn from the Canadian experience.
We will be able to see David Reville teaching his Mad Peoples' History course, we will be meeting people who were involved in the Working Like Crazy film which will include visits to the Raging Spoon Cafe and A-Way express, both survivor run businesses.

We will also be visiting the Centre for Mental Health and Addictions, discussing a fascinating exhibition "Out from Under" that Kathryn Church curated. We will be hearing presentations from a range of people, attending a major Canadian mental health conference and we will be presenting about the work OMH has done so far and what we can learn from each other and how we can take this forward.

Another thing I am very excited about is meeting the people who have been involved in archiving the user movement history in Toronto - the Toronto Psychiatric Survivors Archives. This will be a wonderful chance for me to learn how they have recorded thier rich history. Hope to come back full of inspiration!

The Rendevouz with Madness Film Festival is also on when we are there, whch should be good!
One of the group going over is involved with Theatre Workshop, who are developing a script for a film based on the Lothian user movement. Another person is keen to develop a curriculum similar to David's course to be taught here. So we are keen to do all we can to support these exciting developments.

So I will keep you updated on all the news from Canada next week.

Kirsten

Oral History Interviews

Hello, just a quick update - we are now about to start interview number 39, which is brilliant. Thanks to all that have taken part so far and to all the volunteers. We are planning to keep on interviewing until the end of October, so there is still time if you would like to take part! Please give us a call on 0131 538 7177. Thanks! Kirsten

Interviews in full swing! Thanks to everyone!

Hello.

Thanks Anne, for your update on the Oral History Society Conference. Sounds like a fantastic weekend.

Just to say that the interviews are in full swing now and going well. I'd like to say a HUGE THANKYOU to everyone that has been interviewed so far and also another HUGE THANKYOU to all the volunteers who are doing the interviews. We still have quite a few interviews to do and if you or anyone you know would like to be interviewed, please give me a call at the CAPS office on 0131 538 7177. We would be delighted to hear from you!

Also thanks to the Patient's Council for having me along the other day. Hoping to interview a few current members soon.

Jim and I also were invited to speak to Health In Mind staff in July about OMH. They have a new Service User Involvement Worker, Ben Hall who is looking at ways to increase service user involvement across Health In Mind. Thanks to them for having us along.

I think that's all the news for now...
Cheers!

Oral History Society Conference 2009

Jim and Anne attended the Oral History Society Conference at Strathclyde University through in Glasgow on 3 and 4 July, 2009

We heard about other oral history work in Scotland, England, Canada and the US; met lots of interesting people; and gave a presentation on Oor Mad History. This was met with a great deal of interest - lots of good questions after the presentation and lots of interesting comments over tea.

It was great to be there as oral historians first and foremost, as we are used to doing presentations to people involved in various ways with mental health. It gave a different perspective on our work, and we could make connections with what other people were doing elsewhere and with different groups of people.

Issues which seemed particularly relevant to Oor Mad History were:

• the importance of the spoken voice and that we must not allow the transcript to lose our sense of that importanc;
• what do we do with the recordings we make? Do they simply gather dust in the archives?
• how researchers/interviewers being 'insiders' or 'outsiders' affect the research;
• who and what do we exclude - we cannot interview everyone but we have to be aware of whose voices are silenced or ignored - and how do we deal with them;
• linked to this, the desire to 'celebrate' history can gloss over conflicts - how do we deal with this?
• 'shared authority', which seems to mean that the researcher and the researched, the interviewer and the interview should be equal;
  
• how people interpret their experiences of discrimination, denying they ever experienced it or downplaying it, despite describing experiences which are seen by others as discrimination.

In conclusion: it was a really interesting and enjoyable two days where we learnt a lot and reflected a lot on what oral history is about and on Oor Mad History in particular.

Interviewing season!

Hello,
Just to say that the interviews are going well. The volunteers have now all interviewed each other for the archive. This was good pratice and has generated some great material. We've now done a few interviews with early activists and what is really great is that the volunteers are so genuinely interested they are not only using the interview schedules, but asking their own questions especially about the early days of the movement. This is fantastic to hear and the enthusiasm comes through in the recordings.

If you know anyone you think we should be interviewing or if you would like to be interviewed for the project please contact me, Kirsten at CAPS. Thanks!

The voice recorders are here!

Hi there
Thanks to everyone who came along to the taster session, it was fantastic. Thanks also to John from the Living Memory Association who ran the session for us.
Following on from the taster session we are now recruiting volunteers to work with me on the oral history interviews. The voice recorders and micophones have arrived! Exciting! Not long now until we start the interviews...
Other news - Jim and I spoke at the SRN conference in Perth last week. It was a super day, Mary O'Hagan from New Zealand was the key note speaker and over 400 delegates. Anne and I are due to speak at VOX's service user research event in Stirling this Friday. I've also been asked to speak to students at the Outlook Project in April which I'm looking forward to. I'm also meeting with PROP members in May.
In the meantime, if you are interested in volunteering as an oral history interviewer please phone me at the office, on 0131 538 7177.

Oral History Taster!

Hi Everyone! Apologies for not updating for a while. Can't belive it's February already! Well, we now have a date for the Oral History Taster, Tuesday 24 February 2009. It's going to be at the Dalmeny Street Drill Hall, which a lot of you will know already, from 11am-2pm with a lunch included. We have 11 people signed up so far, which is fantastic. If you'd like to come along, please give me a phone.

After the taster we'll then be looking to recruit some volunteers to do the oral history interviews, so will keep you posted about that!

There will be lots of ways to get involved. We are hoping to have a meeting soon , a get together of service user groups from all over Lothian to talk about Oor Mad History.

Other news is that we are speaking at the Scottish Recovery Network national conference at the end of the month and a VOX event in March about service user research, maybe see you there!

In the meantime, if you want to find out more about our project, or come and look through the archive, just give me a phone at CAPS on 0131 538 7177. Cheers!