Mental Notes, the documentary film by Marbrook

Mental Notes is a new documentary film that follows five people with experience of mental illness who survived the institutional treatment of the 'bins' who now reflect on their experiences, many that were dehumanizing. These five people are now very active contributors to their respective communities, but not by any virtue of their institutional 'care'.
I saw the film last Friday, where the director spoke before the showing. I am fortunate to have met and shared some conversation with two of the five featured in the film: Anne Helm and John Tovey. They both were able to present vivid and compelling personal accounts of their experiences and reflections of value, on the process of their illness and that of their recovery, from not only the huge challenges of their illness but most disturbingly, the torments of their treatment.
Today both Anne and John work as Consumer Consultants for the local government district health board, Capital and Coast, the organization that has hosted most of my sabbatical connections here. Trailers of the film are available if you Goggle: Mental Notes, the movie. After the film on Friday I returned to Te Whare Marie to see if Tua Hekenui's family might still be around but the marae was without visitors any longer and resting after the large groups that had come the previous two days. Tua's body was taken in the very early hours of Friday morning by train up to the central North Island where his iwi is.
Yesterday I was fortunate to have the pleasure of Dr Richard Holt and his wife Dr Kristen Sparks who had come to help pick apples at Gregg and Carla's. Richard filled me in on the memorial service at Te Whare Marie, clearly a stressful time for most everyone involved.
Richard and Kristen are both American psychiatrists, both graduated from their MD schools at the top of their class. About seven months ago they moved here to live and work. They are both highly regarded as you can imagine. They spoke of some of the differences in medical and clinical practices here, mostly favorable and advantageous to recovery and wellness. Significantly, they sited the differences in boundaries that I have written about, and find that these less vigilant boundaries and the associated risk issues are culturally more appropriate and congruent with improved recovery and wellness models. The focus shifts in these models from the more egocentric focus in the western models to whanua, that is family, and its sense of inclusiveness beyond just immediate family.
In my observations a great deal of illness and disease is the consequence of stressors brought on by disconnection: disconnection from environment and disconnection with others/ family/ community. These experiences of disconnection engender degrees of relative disorientation and the loss of a sense of belonging. Individual motivation ebbs under these circumstances, and the less active we become, then the more significant the negative impact to our physical health systems result. The recovery process and the subsequent steps involved in our wellness are then dependent on reconnecting and recovering a sense of belonging/ valued roles; reorienting to a sense of inclusion, involvement, individual value, process, and purpose. This then reignites hope and the critical motivation for the spiritual centering of connection and conviction of purpose: living life in wellness.

The tree Tua especially liked at Te Whare Marie

Details of the woven trunk that is distinctive of this tree in front of Te Whare Marie

Dr Richard Holt and Dr Kristen Sparks at Gregg and Carla's apple orchard 

Giant bubble bee the length and breadth of my thumb, makes me think of Tua Hekenui and his aroha, the shortness of life and the need to live with purpose.

I have less than three weeks left now here in New Zealand and will see what I can do to wrap up with some interviews with people who I have come to know hold a very good sense of how recovery and wellness are effectively facilitated.

Return to Te Whare Marie, VincentsArt, and an intro to Blueprint

Maori Specialty Mental Health Services

On Tuesday I was able to return to Maori Specialty Mental Health Services where I sat in on the Multi-Disciplinary Team. They began with the traditional karakia, which is like a prayer-combo-blessing, and then the team consultant psychiatrist, Dr Allister Bush, lead an exercise with guitar playing and a song that all joined in on. Then he lead a mindfulness exercise for "a safe place"with guided imagery for relaxation. Then the regular clinical business was attended to. The meeting concluded with a karakia as well. Outside of this meeting I was fortunate to have several conversations regarding the work this team does. Tua also explained to me the meaning of the word and reference to "marae", after I asked him about its modern use vs it's traditional use. The word is a construction of two words: 'ma' being the word for pure, and 'rae' being the word for forehead. So the Maori significance of marae is its implication for pure thought, as a concept that involves the environment as you approach the meeting/ spirit house. Tua made the point to say that the environmental awareness would be a comprehensive involvement that begins with the earth below, the life within and the sky and heavens above, all calling for pure thought that leads to right action. Marae is often used today in terms of a collective reference to all the buildings and grounds of a spiritual center for a Maori community/ iwi.
Today, Thursday April 19 at 4:15 Te Whare Marie held a memorial service for Tua Hekenui, eldest son, father, husband, Cultural Therapist for Maori Specialty Mental Health Services, student of his Maori culture and history, who died quite suddenly. I will miss his warm welcome and generous sharing of his knowledge of spiritual wellness. He greeted me just last week with the hongi, and he made a point to share the breath of life with me in earnest and with a great smile that followed. I am thankful for having been able to meet and know him enough to know him as a friend. He liked to sing and often sung while preparing himself for the staff meeting. I learned of his memorial service too late to be able to attend. It is in fact happening as I write this. I first met Tua the day I turned 55, Monday March 5th, my initial welcome into the marae at Te Whare Marie. He was very kind to me and I will remember him well.

Tua Hekenui

Vincents Art Workshop

Antoinette, artist/tutor at Vincents Art Workshop

I made my way to Vincents Art Workshop ( www.vincentsartworkshop.co.nz )on Wednesday, where I was able to sit and just observe for a couple of hours before I let on who I was and why I was there. That's when I met Antoinette Ratcliffe, ( www.the-sick-bay.com ) installation artist and fill-in tutor at Vincents. She is seen above with the art work of one of the members just going up for a one man show. The environment of Vincents is very welcoming, bright and colorful. There is a great deal of artists' work all about, on the walls and ceilings, in cubbies, draws and shelves. Vincents differs from the prior two art/ creative space programs I had visited earlier by the fact that Vincents does not restrict members to those with experience of mental illness. Vincents is welcoming to any community people who want to experience a welcoming creative/ art space. I saw this in full effect when a mother brought her two young children in to make some art work. She had brought her children before, and this is a week that schools were out so it was a natural choice for this mom to spend some time at Vincents. There were over a dozen members who came in to work on their art while I was there. There were also two tutors present while I waited for the program coordinator to arrive from a community meeting.

Andrew, artist/tutor at Vincents 

Below is Glen, Vincents coordinator who leads this community asset with a passion and a great understanding for the value of inclusiveness when it comes to welcoming everyone for creative expression. Vincents has a gallery central to its space where they feature a lot of the work done by its members. Once a week they provide a structured workshop and they reach out to the forensic and in-patient population regularly as well. They keep Thursday each week just for women to attend. Although the life drawing that is hosted here on Tuesday and Thursday evenings is open to all. I was lucky to be able to attend the Thursday evening life drawing. The model was very skilled and the group of a dozen artists were quite focused, and comfortable with a new face in the group.
Vincent's just celebrated their 25th anniversary. They have a large number of awards that adorn the walls along with the art. Glen helped me connect with Art Access New Zealand that works with the 85 creative art space programs across new Zealand.

Glen McDonald, program Coordinator and heart of the program at Vincents

Friends of Vincents

The main workshop art space

Blueprint

Sally granted me a visit last week so I could sit with her and find out more about her program Blueprint      ( www.blueprint.co.nz ), one of the nine organizations in the WiseGroup Collective. You may remember that Pathways was another NGO that I visited a few weeks earlier from the WiseGroup. Blueprint specializes as the educational training arm of WiseGroup. Innovative trainings for leadership within the mental health services nationally as well as for many community based groups like police, fire fighters, educators, and government leaders. The principle training for these community services is MH101, a program funded by the Ministry of Health for New Zealand. It is a collaboration that involved The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists; ProCARE; The Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand and the Kites Trust. The three principles of MH101 is Recognize, Relate, and Respond.                 ( www.MH101.co.nz )
Sally pointed out to me that Blueprint, like each of the other WiseGroup organizations subscribe to the principles of Sustainable Peak Performance, a business model based in core values that highlight ownership by everyone in the organization, and innovative practices,  notably used by Toyota, and Proctor and Gamble. One of the consequences of this business model for WiseGroup is that they screen new hires based on compatible values driven work that focuses on innovation and wellness. New Zealand, and the Wellington area in particular, has been struggling with a drawn out economic recession much like the USA, and Blueprint sees its future is advantaged by the fact that it has this very strong values based core to its operational strategies and the fact that it is a part of a much larger group that allows it to stay focused on what it does best while the other groups provide certain efficiencies: i.e., Wild Bamboo,                               ( www.wildbamboo.co.nz )another group member that develops specific computer software to meet their needs and the needs of the other group members like Te Pou, ( www.tepou.co.nz ) the group dedicated to researching mental health and related issues like employment for the disabled. From my very limited perspective this does indeed appear to be a very smart approach that advantages each group member organization within WiseGroup.

Sally Pitts-Brown, CEO for Blueprint, integral organization within WiseGroup

Return to Kites Trust and a forum on supported employment

Monthly Inner City Committee Meeting with reps from nearly twelve different NGOs

I was invited by Kites Trust to sit in on the above meeting where discussion focused mostly on the legal opinion from the Wellington Community Law Centre ( www.wclc.org.nz ) regarding the implementation of two new initiates in the mental health service arena: Special Circumstances Court, for a treatment alternative to the standard prison route for repeat low level offenders with mental health issues; and a new funding program for teenage parents. It is interesting to me that the Community Law Centre works for these NGO's collectively to review potential issues of discriminatory practices and policies by government and other serve organizations. The law centre has several lawyers who tackle the legality of various emerging issues. This Inner City Comm. is a forum for review and discussion of the congruency of policy and practices with the national movement for combating discrimination and stigma for people with experience of mental illness. This proved to be a good discussion that allowed many perspectives to be heard and considered. Another discussion brought some focus to issues of suicide and points made that have been found to mark dropped rates in the national suicide rate in New Zealand in recent years.

Kites Trust Team Building

Preparing the afternoon tea for the team building session with Kites Trust

I was invited to take part in the monthly team building session at Kites Trust ( www.kites.org.nz ). Above you can see Eileen and Ruth are setting up the afternoon tea at the Wellington Croquet Club, the site for the afternoon's team building session. Ruth Jackson is one of the featured writer's in the book "Stepping out of the Shadows", a very insightful account of mental illness and service experiences that the authors have lived through, and then achieved personal recovery and wellness.

Kim is focusing on how to best apply the recently discussed team strategies 

Our Wellington Croquet veteran explains the rules of the game and team strategies

Margaret works at applying the team strategy

The Visitor as team player, trying to make the opposing team work harder for their points.

Below is the locale of where I joined a group presentation on supported employment programs for refugees and people with mental illness. The Wellington area has at least six different NGOs whose services focus on helping people with disabilities find and keep jobs. The refugee programs involve many supportive services here, from translators, to housing, therapy and employment services. Margaret Donald who had long ago worked with the Kites Trust is now providing her own referral service for primary care providers. She works with many general practitioners who refer people with mild to moderate mental health needs for Margaret to connect to the appropriate services in Wellington. Margaret has a nursing background and does a lot of work getting people with experience of mental illness connected to effective services. Her offices are located adjacent to many of the refugee services available here. Margaret organized todays presentation on supported employment services in this area, which involved the Multicultural Services Centre that specializes in refugee and migrant communities in Wellington. This group is connected to the Wellington Refugees as Survivors trust that I visited last week. These are essential services that provide effective supports for people with mental illness experiences that are often the result of trauma. Being able to return to work or find work is known to be critical to effective recovery for the person and their community life. Discrimination and stigma issues continue to find challenging initiatives from these service providers.

These large buildings are all part of the Wellington Regional Hospital complex