Information for Mental Health (Leeds)

Mental Health guide

• Benefits
• Care Programme Approach
• Finding your way through the system
• Having your say
• Mental Capacity Act 2005
• Mental Health Act 2007
• The survivor movement
• Treatment
• Your rights as a carer
• Your rights as a service user
• What do the professionals do?
• Words used in mental health

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The survivor movement

There is a long history of people who have used or survived mental health services getting together to campaign for improvements and rights.

A recent study suggests the movement began in 1620 with the “Petition of the Poor Distracted Folk of Bedlam.

The modern movement is generally thought to have grown from the antipsychiatry movement of the 1960s. The mid 1980s saw an upsurge in activity - perhaps fuelled by the 1983 Mental Health Act, which offered patients greater protection and placed more emphasis on rights.

There are now a number of groups and organisations nationally and in Leeds
that have been developed by and are led by service users and survivors.

Local groups include:

• Leeds Mental Health Advocacy Group
• Self-help Initiatives Project - SHIP
• Leeds Survivor-Led Crisis Service
• Leeds Hearing Voices Group

National groups include:

• The UK Advocacy Network 14/18 West Bar Green, Sheffield S1 2DA, website www.u-kan.co.uk
• The National Survivor User Network, 27-29 Vauxhall Grove, Vauxhall, London SW8 1SY_0845 602 0779

The term Survivor Movement is part of a vocabulary that is used to define a self-description in relation to an individual’s view of self, mental health and use of services. Other terms may include but are not limited to; mental health service consumer, psychiatric survivor, pioneer, mental health service user, survivor of mental distress or member of a recovery service.

It is important that people should be able to define themselves using words which are acceptable to them. Language itself is part of a recovery process. We have used the term service user frequently through out this guide but acknowledge that this is only one term to describe a person who may use any of a broad spectrum of mental health services.