The mental health college that"s a lifeline in "a sea of being alone"

The students gathered on a three-hour “five ways to improve your wellbeing” course in south London are about to have a powerful realisation.

One of the group is asked to think about how many hours a week she spends seeing healthcare professionals, such as health visitors or psychiatrists, about her mental health condition.

She tots up the amount of hours each week and multiplies it by 52. It comes to just under two full days. Stella Williams, the course’s peer trainer, points out that for 363 days she has managed her condition all by herself.

For the group of students, who are all either current or former patients at the South West London and St George’s mental health NHS trust and now taking courses at the onsite Recovery College, this realisation that they look after themselves for such a large part of the year, makes them smile with pride.

I can’t talk to my son or husband because they don’t know what I’m talking about but people here do

Clara Jones

Launched in 2010, there are now over 50 courses in the shiny prospectus belonging to the Recovery College situated in the grounds of Springfield University hospital that are attended by around 150 people a week. They range from providing information about specific diagnoses (for example, understanding personality disorder), to teaching coping tools such as journaling or mindfulness. There are also courses specifically for carers, families and friends.

Clara Jones, a mother of one, has severe anxiety and depression and admits that being at the college is the very last place she really wants to be. “If I had my way, I’d be at home in my bedroom with the curtains drawn and the door closed. But I make myself come because it gives me the feeling of not being alone and that helps. It took a lot of courage for me to come to the first class,” she says.

Each course is co-produced and co-facilitated by a peer trainer who is someone with lived experience of a mental health issue, and a practitioner trainer, who is a mental health professional.

For Jones, who is one of the 2,700 people to have attended since the Recovery College opened, one of the best things about coming to the college, is knowing she isn’t alone. “People say wise things without even knowing and no one cares if I’m not saying anything. I can’t talk to my son or husband because they don’t know what I’m talking about, but people here do.”

Last week the students learned about how staying active can improve their mental health. One student, Steph Bates, an artist who has obsessive compulsive disorder, tells the group about how she had braved going swimming for the first time in years and how much it had lifted her mood.

Peer trainer Peter Wilson says watching his students build confidence like this is the best thing about his job. “We were running a course about being assertive and in the second week a girl had had a conversation with her partner that she’d wanted to have for years but hadn’t been able to. It’s the nature of the college.”

Wilson has been a peer trainer for a year. “I was sitting on the other side of the table just two years ago, that’s how recent it is. I had my own business but I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and I lost it all. I then went through the learning curve and it took a while to get to where I am now.

“In class, I draw on my raw experiences of bipolar and how I manage it. I bring that to the room so hopefully students will be inspired.”

One of his colleagues is Kevin Howell, a practitioner trainer, whose background is in psychiatric nursing. Working so closely with peer trainers is one of the most unique things about his role. “I’ll be honest, I was nervous about what experience they’d have in a classroom environment,” he says. “It was quite daunting being involved in a new concept and realising that I couldn’t make any assumptions about my co-trainer’s experience.”

“We had some teething problems at first, one of which was realising we needed a formal process to bring peer trainers on board so that we had confidence in their training and ability.”

A trainee peer trainer programme was developed. Now, Howell says he knows that his co-trainers have both the training and the experience to be a true partner in the classroom. “What’s wonderful about working with a peer trainer is that student can relate directly to them, and this brings out information in the class that I would never hear otherwise.”

Howell believes the college is so successful because they put participants at the centre of what they do. He says: “Students don’t feel they’re on a conveyor belt and are valued for the whole person they are. When the focus is on the individual as a whole rather than their diagnosis you see a much fuller picture.”

For Bates, who enrolled just two weeks ago, the course is already helping her manage her OCD while she waits for a bed in a residential unit. She says: “It’s helpful in so many ways. For me it’s like a float in the sea of being alone.”

* Some names have been changed.

Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.

The mental health college that"s a lifeline in "a sea of being alone"

For my daughter, the EpiPen is a lifeline, not a luxury | Liz Richardson Voyles

This month, pharmaceutical company, Mylan, crowed that they smashed second-quarter expectations; with earnings of $ 2.56bn, up 8% from the year before. Their CEO’s salary has ballooned 671% over the past eight years. The corporation was able to accomplish this in part, because they are the maker of a medical device called the EpiPen, which delivers a life-saving drug to stop an anaphylactic allergy attack. The company has raised the price of this medication 461% since 2007. Mylan’s latest announcement – that it would offer various new pricing concessions to families on lower incomes and those who have to pay out of pocket, cannot alter this stark fact.

American policymakers just woke up to a reality many American families have been living for years: the US medical system is tilted so far in favor of drug companies, that those reliant on life-saving medications are at the mercy of pharmaceutical manufacturers’ nearly limitless desire to line their pockets. I am a mother in one of those families.

When our beautiful daughter Emma was born in 2010, everything about her was perfect – she’d laugh while her 10 soft fingers would grab 10 wiggling toes. The only thing that seemed to trip her up was something that seemed to come pretty naturally to most newborns: eating. She was clearly in pain while she nursed, and we could not figure out why. The answer would emerge over the course of the subsequent months, through many medical visits: Emma was one of millions of children who, due to a series of genetic and environmental factors, was born with food allergies. We would later find out that one of her allergies was severe and life threatening: ingesting peanuts swiftly sends her into anaphylaxis.

The news was terrifying at first, and my husband and I quickly set up systems with her allergist to make sure she was safe in every possible setting or scenario. The central factor in every part of our plan was whether she would have quick and easy access to her EpiPen, which can immediately halt an anaphylaxis attack by delivering epinephrine, via injection. The EpiPen became an essential part of our lives overnight, and we would pay for as many as our health insurance would cover. But we learned over time that this life-saving device – a triumph of modern medical science – was becoming more and more difficult to access. Each dose must be replaced once a year, and each time we refilled the prescription, our pharmacist would report that the price jumped dramatically again.

Mylan was behind those increases, raising the price from $ 57 a shot when it took over sales of the product less than a decade ago to more than $ 600 today. This price jump exposes not just some gaping moral and ethical holes in America’s healthcare system, but some dangerous market distortions taking place in the US pharmaceutical industry.

First, the price has quadrupled in just nine years, with no perceivable improvement to the product to justify the increase. The drug still only contains about $ 1 of active ingredient. Second, consumers have no viable alternative, because Mylan holds a monopoly on the product. Other manufacturers have attempted to diversify the market, only to be stopped short by the US Food and Drug Administration. We’ve seen pharmaceutical executives callously take advantage of this “market opportunity” a number of times before with different drugs, most notably when disgraced Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO, Martin Shkreli, was exposed for price-gouging pills to $ 750.

Third, this drug is quite literally the difference between life and death for many families, because allergies do not discriminate between those who have quality health insurance or none at all. So far, my family has been lucky enough to have the means and insurance to keep adjusting to the jarring price hikes, but many are not so fortunate. Parents all over the country have shared their stories of helplessly watching the price of this life saving medication rise beyond their reach, or taking drastic measures to afford the medication.

The bottom line is that no parent should have to send their child off to school or camp, hoping and praying for their child’s basic safety, because they cannot afford to purchase essential medication. Public officials weighed in this week, from Senator Amy Klobuchar, who is calling for hearings scrutinizing the price hike, to Hillary Clinton, who called on Mylan to “immediately reduce the price of EpiPens”.

The fact is that Mylan, and many other companies like them, were able to inflate prices on life-saving, one-of-a-kind medications, because they could.

The American medical system is simply broken. We are far from a free market where competition is open and companies are incentivized to spur innovation and compete fairly for market share. Instead, the powerful few are able to enjoy exorbitant profits at the expense of desperate families like mine, who will pay anything to simply keep their children safe.

For my daughter, the EpiPen is a lifeline, not a luxury | Liz Richardson Voyles

Iain Duncan Smith says I am dependent. But my benefits are a lifeline, not a trap

‘Dependency sounds like people are addicted to rewards. If that is the prevailing perspective, then no wonder people who need to have help come to feel picked on and ashamed.’ Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

Iain Duncan Smith’s speech last week on jobseekers possessing to search for perform just before they can sign on, talked about “dependency” 14 occasions. He didn’t mention individuals created redundant, or staying at house to care for loved ones or, like me, who are also sick to operate. I uncover that deeply disturbing and I compose in the hope that the operate and pensions secretary thinks about the consequences of what he says and changes how he speaks in the potential.

I’m 52 and live in Newcastle with my wife and two young children. Six many years in the past I was diagnosed with a uncommon and incurable form of leukaemia (cancer of the blood). My objective is to live long sufficient to see my young children grow up.

I left college at sixteen and have worked all my life due to the fact that is all I wished to do. I come from a loved ones which was hardworking and was brought up to understand that you got a task and worked all your existence. I’ve worked in retail, the motor business, in insurance coverage and, for 12 years I worked at the Department for Operate and Pensions. It truly is been a good daily life. Not rich, not bad, but I’ve loved every little thing we have worked hard for.

For 4 years right after my diagnosis, I worked complete time but I was extremely tired, in ache and choosing up every cold and flu going due to the fact of my weakened immune technique. I retired due to ill health at the finish of 2012 and given that then have claimed the advantages I am entitled to and that I have contributed to all my existence so that we can proceed to pay the mortgage loan and place food on the table.

You could say that me and my family are dependent on rewards. In the exact same way we had been dependent on my salary and we are still dependent on my pension and the income my wife earns. Unless of course we are born rich, we all depend on the funds coming in every single month. But Iain Duncan Smith makes use of dependent in a way I reject. Dependency sounds like folks are addicted to positive aspects. If which is the prevailing attitude, then no wonder folks who need to have help come to feel picked on and ashamed.

I’m not unusual. Other folks who have had help from benefits have essential that assist because they were operating in reduced-paid jobs, looking for work or, like me, unable to function. Perhaps we are an inconvenient reminder that becoming unable to pay the expenses with no aid is not a straightforward moral failing – it truly is anything that so several of us are only a diagnosis or a redundancy letter away from. If I can not persuade men and women in electrical power to stop speaking about dependency, possibly they would agree that, for each and every time they do, they match it with a reference to the millions of us for whom help from rewards is a lifeline, not a trap.

Iain Duncan Smith says I am dependent. But my benefits are a lifeline, not a trap