Mental Health Reform E-Zine
Thank you for signing up to Mental Health Reform’s e-zine. We are thrilled that you will help us to promote improved mental health services in Ireland. Please forward this email to anybody interested in reforming mental health services and ask them to sign up too.
In the last few months, Mental Health Reform has been busy. A Policy Officer,
Dr. Shari McDaid and a Communications Officer,
Natalie Buhl have joined Director Orla Barry. Currently, MHR is meeting service users, service providers and families across the country.
Guiding A Vision For Change - Manifesto for Mental Health Reform
Guiding A Vision for Change – Manifesto for Mental Health Reform, is a project that will document stakeholders’ vision of a good quality mental health service, by evaluating the current status of A Vision for Change (AVFC) implementation and identifying international good practice issues that may need to be taken into account in proceeding with the implementation of AVFC.
It will name the cultural change and supporting practices that underpin a quality, modern, humane mental health service. The project is based on a central belief that while structural changes are essential to the implementation of AVFC, cultural change needs to happen in order to fundamentally improve mental health services in Ireland. MHR considers that to articulate this cultural change it is important to document what our member organisations and their constituency of service users, families and community interest groups consider the essence of AVFC to be and name what a reformed mental health service should be like. The project will take into account service users, families, staff and advocates with a view to understand what cultural changes are necessary.
In order to develop
Guiding A Vision for Change – Manifesto for Mental Health Reform, Mental Health Reform will hold consultative public meetings, one to one interviews with national influencers and look at international good practice. A Stakeholders Advisory Group and an International Expert Panel will also inform this project. The dates and locations of the public meetings will be announced in next month's e-zine and on
www.mentalhealthreform.ie
Directorate of Mental Health
We welcome Minister Kathleen Lynch TD’s commitment to a Directorate of Mental Health with full budgetary powers, which she announced for the first time publicly.
The establishment of a Directorate with single pointed, executive authority, responsibility and accountability is a welcome step towards implementation of A Vision for Change. Our commentary on this can be found in
The Examiner and
The Irish Times.
Oireachtas Cross Party Group on Mental Health
Mental Health Reform together with Amnesty International Ireland provide secretariat services to the Houses of the Oireachtas Cross Party Group on Mental Health. We launched a
briefing pack on Mental Health for Members of the Houses in May and are holding a Briefing on the Mental Health Act shortly. The Mental Health Act 2001 legislates for the involuntary detention of people experiencing mental health problems. The Mental Health Commission (the independent watchdog for inpatient mental health units) was set up on foot of the introduction of the Act. The Act is due for review later this year.
