BSMHD Newletter January 2006

• BSMHD 2006 Annual Conference
• CALL FOR PAPERS - 2006 BSMHD Annual Conference Newcastle
• Next BSMHD Meeting - Preston 28th March 2006
• Towards Equity and Access Implementation Panel
• BSMHD Straegic Review
• All Party Parliamentary Group on Deafness
• Mental Health and Deafness – Addressing Basic Rights
• Springfield Youth Club
• Deaf Parent’s Guide to Pregnancy and Birth
• DEAFAX ICT Research and Development Unit – Deaf Graduates

BSMHD 2006 Annual Conference

The BSMHD 2006 Annual Conference will be held on Thursday 25 May 2006 at the Royal Station Hotel, Newcastle. The programme is being developed and the delegate booking forms will be available shortly. For further details please contact Jenny Hitchen, the conference organiser, at [email protected].

CALL FOR PAPERS – 2006 BSMHD Annual Conference Newcastle

Abstracts of papers for consideration by the conference committee are requested on any subject relating to Mental Health and Deafness.

All presentations will be plenary sessions, presented in front of all conference delegates in a theatre style. The official languages for presentations will be English and British Sign Language. Simultaneous interpreting will be provided for all sessions between English and British Sign Language. All sessions will also have a verbatim speech to text transcription service.

Abstracts must be submitted by email attachment in text, not PowerPoint, (.doc, .txt, .rtf) to [email protected] by 10 March 2006. The conference subcommittee will select the most appropriate presentations and a decision will be made by 31 March 2006. Full papers will be required by 12 May 2006 to give time for the communication support team to prepare for your presentation.

There will also be a small exhibition attached to the conference, organisations interested in booking exhibition space please contact Jenny Hitchen, the conference organiser, at [email protected].

Next BSMHD meeting – Preston 28 March 2006

The next BSMHD meeting will be held at Deafway, Brockholes Brow, Preston, Lancashire, PR2 5AL on 28 March 2006. The meeting will be an opportunity to meet staff from the Health Services and Deaf Organisations in the North West of England. BSMHD Meetings are open to all members and are free to attend. If you would like to attend please contact Jonathan Isaac, [email protected] .

The summer meeting will be held in Hampshire in July. Further details will be available in the next Newsletter.

Towards Equity and Access Implementation Panel

The Department of Health Towards Equity and Access Implementation Panel met again on 10 November 2005. The TEA Officers reported that progress had been slow in the ‘Top Down’ approach because it is difficult to identify the right person to speak to. There is also a feeling that the TEA Report is not significant because the amount of money attached to it is very small compared to the funding issues effecting many SHAs and PCTs. There are also problems in identifying the funding as it has often been wrongly coded. It was noted that many of these problems occur within other areas, with money being distributed without sufficient guidance. It was agreed that it would assist the SHAs and PCTs to give them clear guidance on what action they should be taking, rather than leaving them with the initiative. It is to be hoped that other areas will replicate the consortium arrangement in London.

The ‘Bottom Up’ approach has been much more successful, although many deaf people lack the confidence to ask questions of their PCT publicly. Progress has been made with groups of deaf people in Newcastle, Eastbourne, Derby and Lewisham. The meeting in Newcastle was particularly successful with many deaf groups and cubs coming together to meet with representatives from the health services, including three SHA commissioners. This has helped to produce evidence of need that can be used as a guide in other areas. The next meetings will be in Manchester and Birmingham. It was commented that although many of the issues are about general health the association with Mental Health may discourage people from engaging in the process, although clearly it is important that the connection with Mental Health is not lost.

There has been significant publicity recently with a detailed report on BBC See Hear and reports on the UK Council on Deafness, SIGN, RNID and BSMHD websites. Reports have also been featured in the BDA magazine and NDCS magazine. The officers have visited Sense and Deafblind UK to discuss implementation of the recommendations relating to deafblind people.

In September guidelines were issued for applying for funding for National Initiatives to assist in implementation of the recommendations. The guidelines stated that proposals must meet the following criteria: Be short term (maximum 12 months), and have no recurrent revenue implications, unless it can be demonstrated that these can be met from a different source of funding; Support implementation of Towards Equity and Access; Have national implications; and not be for capital projects or for funding of clinical services. Where appropriate proposals should: engage with and involve the deaf community; be collaborative between and within the sectors; involve mainstream and other deaf organisations to generate a momentum behind the report; remain relevant within the changing structure of the NHS; be quantifiable and measurable. The deadline for submitting new proposals was 14 October 2005.

By the deadline 24 proposals for a total of £2.2m had been received. These were reviewed by the Panel and a shortlist of 11 preferred proposals drawn up, totalling approximately £1.1m. UK Council on Deafness has been appointed to manage the distribution of the funding, to work with the organisations to agree detailed project descriptions, including targets against which funding can be released, and to monitor progress. Start dates for all projects will be between 1 December 2005 and 1 March 2006 with all projects required to complete within 12 months. A full list of all the National Initiatives being funded will be published as soon as contracts have been exchanged.

If you are able to assist the Implementation Officers in their work please contact Herbert Klein or Lloyd Wint, The Bridge, Falcon Mews, 46 Oakmead Road, London SW12 9SJ.

[email protected] or [email protected] Fax 020 8772 3242 Voice 020 8772 3225 Textphone 020 8772 3241

The agenda and minutes and supporting papers of the TEA Panel meetings are available on the BSMHD website at www.bsmhd.org.uk/teaimp.htm . The next meeting of the panel is on Thursday 12 January 2006.

BSMHD Strategic Review

In October 2005 the BSMHD Trustees met to discuss the Strategic Plan for the Society for the coming years. BSMHD has grown significantly in membership and activity in recent years and the Trustees now feel that it is the right time to review our activities and ensure that they are appropriate to the membership and fit with our remit as the membership organisation for professionals working in mental health and deafness. The next stage of the review process is to inform members of the outcomes of the October meeting and to seek their views on the potential development of BSMHD. A consultation paper will be distributed to all members in late January and the responses will be discussed at the next BSMHD members meeting in March. Approval for the resulting Strategic Plan will then be sought from members at the AGM in May 2006.

All-Party Parliamentary Group on Deafness

Rosie Winterton MP, Minister of State for Health Services, addressed the meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Deafness on Tuesday 29 November 2005. The Minister informed the members of national initiatives being funded by the Department of Health to implement the recommendations in the Towards Equity and Access Report. The verbatim report of the meeting can be found on the website at www.appg-deafness.org.uk

A delegation from the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Deafness will be visiting Charing Cross Audiology Department on Wednesday 1 February 2006.

Mental Health and Deafness – Addressing Basic Rights

The Mental Health Foundation and Sign: The National Society for Mental Health and Deafness, have produced a service provider information pack to raise awareness of the basic rights of deaf people when receiving mental health services. This jointly developed pack gives those commissioning and providing mental health services essential up to date information on mental health and deafness in order to make services more inclusive. The pack has been endorsed by Rosie Winterton MP, Minister of State for Health Services, and Liam Byrne MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Care Services: “We very much welcome the publication of this service providers’ guide to Mental Health and Deafness. The pack sets out clearly the kind of things that Deaf and deafened people should realistically expect from services and also contains a very useful briefing on the relationship between mental health and deafness. We commend this pack to you and encourage all NHS organisations to endorse the Deaf Mental Health Charter.” To view the Charter pack, please visit www.mentalhealth.org.uk/deafcharter

To sign up to the Deaf Mental Health Charter, please download the form on www.mentalhealth.org.uk/deafcharter and return it to Sign.

Springfield Youth Club

Springfield Youth Club has won one of the National Institute of Mental Health in England positive practice awards. The club was set up by Amanda Billingham (Occupational Therapist Corner House) and Shaun Dodds (Teacher in Charge Aquarius Unit) and aims to provide a safe social environment for deaf and hearing young people with mental health difficulties. It opened in April 2005 and runs every Thursday night. The club has been very popular and is really valued by the young people as a place to relax, develop friendships and confidence, support each other and have fun. The Club received a start up grant from Wandsworth youth services and then won a South West London Excellence Award of £500 which bought enough musical instruments to start a band. All the young people, both deaf and hearing, love the chance to have a go at the drums! They do not receive any financial support from the NHS and rely on several staff giving their time on a voluntary basis so the £2000 award from NIMHE is a great bonus and should keep the club running for at least the next year. It is hoped to be able to do some research on the benefits of the club over the next year which may help attract some more financial support.

Deaf Parent’s Guide to Pregnancy and Birth

DPPI has commissioned a new, accessible Deaf Parent’s guide to Pregnancy and Birth, due out March 2006. The innovative DVD for deaf parents and parents-to-be is presented in British Sign Language with sub-titles and voice-over and with supplementary leaflets and is endorsed by Deaf Parenting UK. The resources, produced by Remark! are both deaf-led and parent-led and have been developed with the input of a wide range of health professionals. It is envisaged that the resources will be used by deaf parents and professionals working with them. For a review copy or further information contact: Shanta Everington, DPPI, Unit F9, 89-93 Fonthill Road, London, N4 3JH. Email: [email protected]

DEAFAX ICT Research and Development Unit – Deaf Graduates

The Higher Education Academy has commissioned the Deafax ICT R&D Unit, which is based at the Institute of Education, University of Reading, to conduct a study concerned with deaf graduates' reflections on their undergraduate experience. The main focus of this initial study is to examine how Information and Communications Technology has been used over the past five years; but it will also consider other aspects which include learning, teaching, interpreting, careers, guidance, deaf/hearing communication etc. that provide an important context for its use. Appropriate recommendations will be made to the HEA as to how higher educational institutions and other organisations have provided multimedia/ learning opportunities and procedures for deaf students to maximise their potential and where improvements might be needed now and in the future. The Deafax Researchers would like to invite any deaf graduates who have been awarded degrees in the past five years and wish to be part of this study to contact them, preferably by email: [email protected] or [email protected] Text 0870 770 2463, Voice 0870 770 3275 or Fax 0870 770 2462.If you wish to communicate by Internet Video Conferencing please arrange a date and time with Ken Carter.

Note: The articles that appear in this newsletter are for information only – inclusion does not imply endorsement of the contents by BSMHD.

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Or send us an Email [email protected]

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