Interaction Organisational Map

Interaction acts as the Secretariat for a number of activities. He secretariat provides overall management and co-ordination of the organisation. The web portal (this website is the first step) provides open access to all Interaction functions and materials including research and publications. The database captures and organises the processes and outcomes of the work and the experiences of the different stakeholders. This will eventually become an open repository for mental health knowledge that anyone can use. There will be five key areas of integrated activity:

The Centre for Reflection on Mental Health Policy (CRMHP)

CRMHP will provide the impetus for new thinking and a review and re-framing of mental health policy issues. CRMHP will produce Policy Position Papers on a quarterly basis that will challenge conventional thinking and explore topical issues in mental health policy. To inform the Centres' work, there will be regular input from a new mental health think-tank.

The Centre for Reflection on Mental Health Policy (CRMHP) is an international body managed by the Interaction secretariat to promote creative and critical thinking in the field of mental health policy. In line with Interaction's wider mission statement and values, the Centre emphasises the role of people with the experience of mental health problems and grassroots stakeholders from the local community as key contributors to this process.

The Centre fulfils a number of functions as depicted on the diagram below.

Central to the Centre's work is the idea that reflection and creative thinking are needed to underpin effective public action in the field of mental health. At the same time grassroots stakeholders and activists need the space and support of an organisation like the Centre to reflect on their learning, absorb lessons and experience from other activists and reintegrate their learning into more effective forms of community intervention.

In developing countries, where the pressures of poverty and daily survival are paramount, it is extremely challenging to find the space to stop, reflect and create. And yet the personal and intellectual resources of these communities (and the people with experiences of mental health services that live within them) are huge. It is the belief of the Centre that the best hope of long-term development is in the capacities of communities to use these resources to shape their own futures and empower themselves.

It is ironic therefore that most international resources for academic research, creative thinking and networking go to those with the most privileges already. For it is the powerful and the elites in every country that have most access to think tanks, research centres and quangos. The Centre for Reflection on Mental Health Policy asserts that education, poverty and the stigma of mental health services should not be a barrier to participation in these creative and reflective thinking processes. The Centre therefore uses a range of participatory methodologies, real world experiences and life stories to achieve it's aims of a more inclusive input into the policy process.

The MIRROR think tank provides a boundaried space for creative thinking. People with expertise in the lived experience of mental health and other stakeholders are invited to participate in focused sessions that aim to deliver new solutions and approaches to existing problems. The think tank is a key component of the work of the Centre and has its own webpage on the site (link) that provides more information and ways to participate.

The Policy Position Papers (P3s) are one of the most visible ways the Centre contributes to international debate on key mental health issues. The papers are published on a regular basis and aim to provide a critical and creative perspective on mainstream issues from a grassroots perspective.

The Centre commissions specific pieces of action research from activists, service users and local communities to inform debate and provide fresh perspectives on how mental health issues are experienced and impact at the grassroots. Popular methods include life stories, participatory workshops, reflective diaries and semi-structured interviews. The researchers are local people with a particular emphasis on those who share an experience of mental health services.

The Centre builds capacity for critical reflection by providing training, workshops and toolkits for local communities. One of the real strengths of the Centre is its wide network of service users, activists and NGOs around the world. This enables the Centre to get information, materials and research data directly out to activists at the grassroots that they can then use to enhance and support their public action activities. A common experience in international mental health is the lack of information available to people at the grassroots either because it is not available or so hidden within the systems established by the institutional actors that it impossible to access. Anyone who has had the experience of, for example, searching for information on mental health funding on the huge EU and WHO websites will know exactly what this is like.

The Centre's Public Action Dissemination Network therefore provides a way to get relevant information to the grassroots in a quick and efficient manner. Our knowledge of the technology capacities of grassroots activists and our capacity building support also ensures that information is provided in the most relevant form. The newly established Interaction forum on this website will in the future also become a place where information and material can be shared.

The Centre also recognises that not all reflection and research needs to be a formal process. Therefore Informal Learning Networks are established to capture real world experiences of mental health and public action.

The Centre also reflects and critically evaluates its own activities and performance each year using the same action research tools. It has also established an institutional partnership with the Centre for Civic Participation at the University of Bradford to provide some external input and evaluation of its activities.

CCCMH    ENUSP    Policy Position  

Mirror Think Tank

The first initiative of CRMHP is MIRROR

MIRROR, launched in Slovenia in October 2004, uses the skills and expertise of local people, and enables them to create the space for mental health policy dialogue and initiatives. We aim to widen the mental health constituency by including groups on the fringes of mental health priorities such as older people, ethnic minorities and womens groups.

MIRROR is the new mental health think-tank. The first meeting was part of the Re-thinking Mental Health Policy conference in Slovenia, October, 2004.

  Click here to view the MIRROR paper...

P3's

The Policy Position Papers ("P3s") are written and published by the CRMHP to comment and provide thinking for mental health policy issues from a grassroots perspective. The Centre actively encourages papers that deliver critical thinking, real world case studies and ideas from outside the traditional mental health sphere. Copies of the papers are sent out to activists and policy makers throughout the world and those who have requested to be on the CRMHP database. Electronic copies of the papers are available for download from this site.

Papers are written by a partnership of different authors and include quotes, and case studies from activists. They also draw on commissioned action research and informal data gathered by the CRMHP. The papers are published under the collective authorship of the Centre.

The publishing schedule for the CRMHP Policy Position Papers for 2005 is as follows.

P3 Publishing Date	Title and Topic
2P3: April 2005	Acta, Non Verba - What contribution do ordinary people have to make to the development of national mental health policies?
3P3: August 2005	Why is No One Talking about Gender in Mental Health Policy?
4 P3: November 2005	Poverty and Mental Health
5P3: January 2006	Helsinki One Year On - What has been achieved in the real world?

Further papers may be added and authors are invited to contact the CRMHP if they have an idea for a policy position paper from a grassroots perspective. All papers are reviewed and edited by the InterAction secretariat editorial board.

Future topics for papers include:

• Islam and mental health
• Corruption in mental health governance and services
• Funding trajectories and civil society development in central and eastern Europe
• De-institutionalisation of psychiatric hospitals and social care homes and the barriers to achieving change

The MIRROR think tank is scheduled to meet by the following programme in 2005

MIRROR Meeting Date	Location
May 2005	Lake Bled, Slovenia
July 2005	Budapest, Hungary
September 2005	Bradford, UK
December 2005	Kerala, India

Further dates may be added later. Topics and records of the think tank sessions will be posted on this site.

Public Action Task Force

Public Action Task Force will work directly in the local communities with key individuals (especially users of mental health services and residents of psychiatric hospitals and social care homes), organisations and groups to deliver participatory training workshops on mental health, advocacy, user-involvement, capacity-building, organisational development and policy skills. These workshops will be the basis for local mental health action plans (the Public Action Task Force).

The Interaction Grassroots Mental Health Observatory

The mission of the Observatory is to watch and report on grassroots initiatives and public action from around the world that can inspire and facilitate learning for mental health groups and communities. The observatory is interested in all form of emancipatory practice and will report on innovations from a wide range of sources beyond the traditional scope of mental health. Therefore, learning from diverse fields such as gender projects, business and human rights are reported on where they have lessons that can be transferred or tested in the mental health sphere.

The second part of the Observatory's mission is to observe and report on the activities of the international mental health community and in particular the agencies of global governance of mental health such as the World Health Organisation. The Observatory will scrutinize their work and call them to account for their policies and use of public resources. As with all aspects of InterAction's work, our explicit value base of user involvement and bottom-up community policy development will inform our observations and reporting.

The tools of the Observatory are:

• News reporting of global grassroots initiatives on the Observatory's webpage
• Mapping of the mental health terrain
• Observatory Investigations (OIs) into specific issues
• Public Action Dossiers (PADs) collecting together a range of Observatory information and data and made freely available to grassroots organisations to support their advocacy, campaigning and public action functions in their local communities and in the international arena

To contact the Observatory or submit news and information please contact either observatory@interaction.uk.net or a member of the InterAction secretariat.

Observatory News

March 2005 - the Romanian National Policy Forum delivers the Iasi Declaration to the Romanian government calling on all parties to develop a user focused mental health policy.

  Click here to read an English language version of the declaration.

  Click here to read the original Romanian language version.

Public Action Dossiers

Public Action Dossiers (PADs) are a key output of the Observatory and are based around specific issues in local mental health. They are delivered to grassroots organisations and activists as a tool for them to use in their local public action activities.

PADs are designed to enhance the capacity of local organisations by providing an information function that collects data and material from diverse local and international sources. Small local organisations often lack the organisational structures to dedicate enough time and resources to research and data collection. Research and reflection by the Centre for Reflection on Mental Health Policy indicates that small grassroots mental health organisations are often unaware of the range of material that exists that can support and empower their work and improve the effectiveness of their campaigns. By providing PADs, the Observatory is able to contribute to public action that is outward looking, aware and built on the foundations of learning from global experience.

The outcomes of PADs are:

• To raise and broaden awareness of a public action issue
• To provide evidence, legislative precedents and international standards that can be used by grassroots organisations to enhance their campaigns, lobbying and direct action
• To promote learning in local communities about other successful public action from around the world
• To contribute to improving the planning, implementation and evaluation of public action
• To map trends, norms and patterns in international mental health
• To provide easy access to different sources of information concerning a specific issue including grey material, unpublished data and contested sources.

Dossiers contain:

• Observatory tracking of the key issue including news, reports and mapping
• Human rights information and copies of reports and investigations
• Mental health policy materials including government directives, legislative details and implementation data
• Reports and grey material frm/for other organisations and agencies
• Reports and guidance from governance organisations such as the UN and the WHO
• Contact details for key organisations and individuals
• Case studies of effective public action in the field
• Internet guide to relevant websites, newsgroups and online resources
• Information about the projects and programmes of other organisations involved in the field that may enhance and support local public action
• Contacts and background information about interested journalists and news agencies regarding the specific issues and who may be interested in supporting and being made aware of the local public action
• Copies of training tools and handouts from multiple agencies providing information and exercises.

Public Action Dossiers being assembled by the Observatory during 2005 include:

• Deinstitutionalisation, Closing Hospitals and Opening Community Services
• Women's practical mental health needs
• Open access to medical information
• Challenging corruption in mental health services and institutions.

To contact the Observatory or submit news and information please contact either observatory@interaction.uk.net or a member of the InterAction secretariat.

Interaction Press will disseminate outcomes and learning to the global community.

Article Policy    Gaining Ground  

PR & Campaigning on key issues to inform the public in the different countries/regions on mental health issues.

Public Action and Popular Culture...

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