EAST MEETS WEST IN BURTON ON TRENT

This afternoon I attend a joint meeting of the East Midlands Network on Spirituality and Mental Health and its West Midlands counterpart (or, depending on your viewpoint, the other way round) at All Saints Church, Branston Road, Burton on Trent. There's a good turnout of more than a dozen today, including faces old and new to me:

• Sarajane Aris, Head of Adult Clinical Psychology, Derbyshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
• Peter Gilbert, Emeritus Professor of Social Work and Spirituality at Staffordshire University, Visiting Professor at the University of Worcester, Lead of the National Spirituality and Mental Health Forum
• Phil Henry, Director, Multi-Faith Centre at the University of Derby
• Sam Malins, Trainee Clinical Psychologist, University of Nottingham
• Katja Milner, Spirituality Healthcare Worker, Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust
• Abdullah Muhammad, Chaplain at the University of Derby, Community Projects Leader.
• Dr Helen Philpott, Clinical Psychologist, Derbyshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
• Paul Quilter, Head of Spiritual and Pastoral Care, Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust
• Keith Shaw, Chaplain, South Staffs & Shropshire Healthcare Foundation Trust
• David Waldram, service user representative for Derbyshire Voice (thanks Dave, for the photo below)
• Sharon Warwick, Researcher and Psychotherapist, Apertum Associates

High on our agenda today is how to make best use of our personnel and resources across the East and West Midlands. We decide that from now on, both networks will meet four times a year: independently then jointly then repeat the pattern. We'd like to encourage members to cross over between the regions in the independent meetings as well as taking part in the joint meetings.

We enjoy three presentations today:

• "On Common Ground / The Wounded Healer" by Peter Gilbert
• "The Development of a Spirituality E-Learning Package" by Helen Philpott
• "We Need to be Made to See the Elephant: Clinical Psychologists' Experience of Addressing Spirituality in Supervision" by Sam Malins

We discuss some upcoming conferences and hope we'll be able to participate in some of them, in one way or another:

• "Living in Hope: Spirituality and Practice in Mental Health Care", Liverpool Hope University, Thu 13 October 2011
• "Doctors, Clergy and the Troubled Soul: Two professions, One Vocation?" St Marylebone Parish Church, London, Wed 2 November 2011
• "Dementia and Belief systems", Staffordshire University, Fri 6 January 2012
• "Spirituality in a Fragmented World", Highgate House, Northampton, Tue 15 - Thu 17 May 2012

Phil Henry speaks about the proposed programme of public events at the Multi-Faith Centre at the University of Derby in the autumn (and possibly into the new year) on the theme of Well Being. He gets several volunteers today willing to present sessions in the programme - including me! I fancy doing something based on the consultation about indicators for measuring national well being run by the Office for National Statistics, to which I responded for the Regional Equality and Diversity Partnership (REDP) in May.

Professor Peter Gilbert has edited a new book, Spirituality and Mental Health, which he brings to our attention today. This will be of interest and importance for everyone interested in the relationship between the two. I promise Peter I'd give the book a boost in every way I can, including here in the blog.

This is a handbook for service users, carers and staff wishing to bring a spiritual dimension to mental health services. It contains 23 chapters on aspects of spirituality and mental health written by experts in the field. It promotes an understanding of people’s belief systems rather than a mechanistic approach to mental health services and proves the increasing importance of spirituality in health and social care.

BRANDON UNIT

I receive a phone call this morning from a member of staff at the Brandon Mental Health Unit at Leicester General Hospital. She's calling to ask where they could obtain a multi-faith wall calendar. We don't produce one ourselves, though it's one possible project for our 25th anniversary next year. I recommend that she get hold of the calendar produced by Bradford District Faiths Forum.

While I have her ear, I recommend that the Brandon Unit become involved with the East Midlands Network on Spirituality and Mental Health. There's not much active representation from Leicester and Leicestershire on this network and we need to take every opportunity to promote it. She tells me that the unit has a weekly spiritual care team meeting and that she’ll ensure this matter is raised at the next one.

Photo above: an Eid display at the Brandon Unit, made by service users there.

East Midlands Network on Spirituality and Mental Health

To Bulwell, Nottingham, this morning, for a meeting of the East Midlands Network on Spirituality and Mental Health (EMNSMH) at Highbury Hospital. It's my first visit to Bulwell and my first (six-minute long) trip on the Robin Hood Line from Nottingham station. I'm mildly disappointed that no arrows are fired at the train from the surrounding woods when I made this remark to someone at the meeting, I was told that if I'd stayed on the train for another few stops ...).

The quarterly meetings of this network are usually held at Kingsway Hospital, Derby, where the network was founded in summer 2007 - all barring the last one (Oct 2009) which was held in Leicester, at our Welcome Centre. Only five people attended that meeting and I'm apprehensive that we'll have even fewer this time. If that turns out to be the case, I fear we'll decide to pack it in today. Thankfully, my fears prove groundless. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that this meeting felt like something of a rebirth for our network.

A good omen: I find a decent cafe on Main Street that serves a nice hot veggie breakfast: English muffin with scrambled egg, cheese and mushroom. That's the kind of thing that sets up the day nicely for me, especially in a strange town on a bitterly cold morning like this one. Guided by my iPhone GPS I walk a quarter of an hour or so to Highbury Hospital. There's a lot of building going on here, and our meeting is in what appears to be high quality temporary accommodation.

There are eleven in attendance including me, representing (in geographical terms) Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Northamptonshire (and myself, Leicestershire). We also have a visitor from the West Midlands counterpart of our network - Capt. Keith Shaw, from Staffordshire. I met Keith when I went over to spend a day at a meeting of the West Midlands network, in Jan 2009. I still owe him a set of the our leaflets! In terms of "interest", we have representatives of practitioners (psychiatrists and psychologists), spiritual or pastoral care providers, chaplains and service users. It's pointed out by Sarajane Aris (chairing) that I'm the only one there not directly paid by the NHS. There are several new faces around the table; introductions take a full hour!

Katja Milner (Spirituality Healthcare Worker, Notts Healthcare NHS Trust) gives a PowerPoint presentation introducing Values in Healthcare, a personal and team development programme for healthcare practitioners, which is being used in Nottinghamshire. Katja describes this programme as helping healthcare professionals tap into what it was that attracted them to this kind of work in the first place and helping put them back in touch wth those values and principles, as well as helping them nurutre their own sense of spirituality.

To close her presentation, Katja gives us a five-minute guided meditation, using one of the CDs from the "Peace" module of the "Values in Healthcare" resources. The theme of the meditation is "Inspired to be me".

This approach is inspired by the teachings and leadership of Dadi Janki, Administrative Head of Brahma Kumaris. The Janki Foundation for Global Health Care is "a UK-based charity which encourages research and awareness in the field of health and spirituality. It is dedicated to positive human development and whole-person healthcare, an approach that considers the needs of patients and practitioners at the levels of body, mind and spirit." Some attendees at this meeting have attended training provided by the Janki Foundation and described it as having been beneficial and enjoyable.

When I get the chance to input to the meeting, I stress the potential for involvement of this network with the Regional Equality and Diversity Partnership. The nature of EMNSMH's engagement with mental health care in its many forms would allow it to bring a distinctive contribution to REDP's work.

Dave Waldram, the voice of service users in this network, reported on a conference on Mental Health and the Exploration of Faith which took place in Derby, 2 Feb 2010. Downloads from this conference can be found at the Diocese of Derby Faith in Action website.

Sarajane tells us about two regional conferences on spirituality and mental health to be held in the East Midlands (probably both in Derby, but there's the possibility that one of them could be in Leicester) in October and November respectively.

One memroable thing to take away from this meeting is an aphorism from Vaclav Havel, chipped into the consultation by Hugh Middleton: "Follow the man who seeks the truth; run from the man who has found it."