BSMHD 2009 Annual Conference - London, 8 & 9 June 2009 

Monday 8th June 2009 - 11.00am - 5.30pm & Tuesday 9th June 2009 - 10.00am - 4.00pm. At the Royal Horticultural Society, Vincent Square, London, SW1P 2PE. A two day multidisciplinary conference for all mental health professionals and those in allied professions who work with deaf people. The sub-themes for the conference are: Research in Mental Health and Deafness; Primary Care; Professional Development; and Strategic Development of Services. Confirmed presentations, workshops and seminars:

Stop it Now! - For Deaf People. Yasmin Covic, Deaf Safeguarding Advisor for Deaf Children at NSPCC & Sue O’Rourke, Clinical Director and Psychologist at St Georges Healthcare

Getting under the skin of Deaf people who use mental health services - using the case study approach. Andrew Lowndes, Practice Development Fellow, School of Nursing, Midwifery and Community Health, Glasgow Caledonian University

Why do you keep missing me? - A report into Deaf people's health and access to equal treatment. Steve Powell, Chief Executive, SignHealth

Mental Health in the Deaf Black and Minority Ethnic Communities. Dr Steven Emery

Finding me, finding you - an exploration of mental health services in Scotland for people who are Deaf or Deafblind. Willie McDonald, Lecturer in Mental Health Nursing, School of Nursing, Midwifery and Community Health, Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU)

Improving Access to Psychological Therapies for Deaf People. Hazel Flynn, Head of Advocacy and Counselling at SignHealth & Jonathan Isaac, General Secretary of BSMHD

Pacesetters - mental health promotion in Bristol. Mary Griggs, Clinical Psychologist and Team Leader, Deaf Mental Health Team & Siobhan O’Donovan, Deaf Community Care Worker

Lothian Deaf Counselling Service - the story continues. Teresa Brasier & Trudi Collier, Counsellors, Lothian Deaf Counselling Service

Launching the National Deaf CAMHS. Barry Wright, York Deaf Child and Family Service

Developing a Deaf mental health secure service for men; collaboration, partnership and culture change. Colin Doyle, Clinical Service Development Manager, St Andrew’s Healthcare & Roger Hewitt, Deaf Advisor to the project

Assessments in BSL - a national strategy for change. Mary Griggs & Kevin Baker

Training Deaf Counsellors in BSL. Trudi Collier and Michelle Oldale, Course Tutors

Usher and Life Crises. Tamsin Wengraf, Usher Information and Outreach Officer, Sense

Independent Mental Health Advocacy for Deaf People. Frank Essery, Senior Advocate at SignHealth

Campaigning for the rights of the Deaf Community. Lesley Kiddell-Spencer, Trustee & Simon Wilkinson-Blake, Chief Executive of the British Deaf Association

Guidance and Information for the effective use of Professional BSL/English Interpreters in Mental Health Settings. Granville Tate & Paul Hann

For full details of the programme and how to book your place go to the Events page

 

Next BSMHD members meeting - Northampton, 12 May 2009

The next BSMHD meeting will be held in Northampton on 12 May 2009 at St Andrew's Healthcare, Billing Road, Northampton, NN1 5DG, from 11am to 3.30pm.

The meeting will be an opportunity to meet fellow BSMHD members, staff from the local Health Services and Deaf Organisations. There will be a presentation by St Andrew’s Healthcare about the service provision they are developing, an update on the national activities BSMHD is involved in including developing assessment tools in BSL, improving access to psychological therapies for deaf people, the new Diploma in Integrative Counselling taught in BSL and the forthcoming Annual Conference. If you would like to attend please contact Jonathan Isaac [email protected]

 

IAPT for Deaf People Conference Proceedings

The aim of the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme is to help the NHS to implement the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines for anxiety and depression. NICE approves a range of psychological therapies including CBT, Interpersonal Psychotherapy, Counselling and Couples Therapy. For the Deaf community the IAPT programme is an opportunity for psychological therapies to be accessible in British Sign Language (BSL) in primary care for the first time. The proceedings of the conference held in Birmingham on 26 March are now available on the IAPT page

Diploma in Integrative Counselling taught in BSL - course starts October 2009

The two year Diploma is the minimum training requirement for anyone wanting to become a professional counsellor and meets the training requirement for professional registration as a counsellor, either through British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) or the Association of Humanistic Psychology Practitioners (AHPP). This course, starting in October 2009, has been developed by Inter-Psyche in partnership with SignHealth and BSMHD. It will be delivered and assessed in BSL. For full details of the course and how to apply go to the Training page

 

Interested in becoming a qualified IMHA Advocate?

The training will be in 4 blocks and will run in June, July and September 2009 with Signhealth and Kate Mercer Training. To find out more please contact Frank Essery on [email protected] or Hazel Flynn on [email protected] or SMS 07814 436810.

Mental Health Capacity Act DVD in BSL

RNID have been working with the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) to produce a BSL DVD which explains the principles of the Mental Capacity Act. It also describes the opportunities for individuals to take as much part as possible in decisions that affect them. The DVD is designed to be used as a tool to assist in communicating key messages about the Mental Capacity Act to a BSL user who is not able to access the information in written English. Copies of the DVD are available at no cost from OPG and orders can be placed with them at [email protected]

Vacancies in the new National Deaf CAMHS

The first of the posts are now being advertised. If you go on NHS jobs www.jobs.nhs.uk and put in keyword ‘deaf’ you will find the following jobs: Psychologist (8a) – York. Psychologist (8b) – Cambridge, Kent. Social Worker – York, London. Secretary - York. SALT – London. OT – Kent, Cambridge. Clinical Nurse specialist - Cambridge and Deaf Family support worker - York, London, Kent, Cambridge.

Next Healthy Deaf Minds meeting in London

The next meeting of the Healthy Deaf Minds London Group will be on Wednesday 3 June 2009 at the Small Meeting Room, Friends Meeting House, Euston Road, London (opposite Euston Station). The title of the meeting is 'Assessing Mental Health in the Deaf Community', guest speakers include Ben Jones, Primary Care Practitioner for the Deaf Community at Doncaster PCT and Hazel Flynn, Head of Advocacy and Counselling at SignHealth. Full details on the Healthy Deaf Minds page

Guidance on the effective use of BSL/English Interpreters in mental health settings

Guidance and Information written by Granville Tate and Paul Hann: The Effective use of Professional British Sign Language/English Interpreters in Mental Health Settings at http://www.northeast-bslenglish-interpreters.co.uk/mentalhealthinte.html

Synaesthesia in the Deaf Community

Are you Deaf? Or are you a hearing person who can sign? Do you see colours when you read printed letters or see signs such as fingerspelling or numbers? If so, you may have synaesthesia. The University of Sussex and the Deafness, Cognition and Language Research Centre (DCAL) at University College London, UK are conducting research into synaesthesia, where people have extra perceptions such as colours for letters, or tastes for words. The type we are looking at is called Sign-to-Colour where people see colours when they sign or see others sign. We are looking for both Deaf and hearing signers of either BSL or ASL to take part in an online experiment into synaesthesia and sign language. The researcher Tanya Lyons is a psychology student at the University of Sussex, UK conducting the project as her undergraduate dissertation research. Her findings will form a pilot for a larger scale project. Would you like to participate in this online study? We need both people who can see colours from signs and people who can’t see colours from signs to help with this research. We need both Deaf and hearing signers of either BSL or ASL.The experiment is online. You can select either BSL or ASL (or both if you know both). You will be shown film clips of individual fingerspelled letters and signed numbers.For each signed letter or number, you will need to choose a colour from the chart. If you see colours naturally please select the nearest colour from the chart. If you don’t see colours naturally, choose a colour that first comes to mind. For further details contact Tanya Lyons [email protected] with any questions. If you would like to know more about synaesthesia and synaethesia research: www.syn.sussex.ac.uk . If you would like to know more about DCAL and sign language research: www.dcal.ucl.ac.uk or contact [email protected]

"It just wasn't me any more"

Individual Experiences of Identity Loss, Identity Negotiation, Acceptance and Adjustment in Acquired Hearing Loss by Suzie Black (April 2009). Read the report here.

 
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