‘Family Interventions in Mental Health – Future Directions’
Wednesday 20 June 2018 @ the Ramada Birmingham Solihull Hotel, The Square, Solihull B91 3RF
To mark the Programme’s 20th anniversary we are hosting a one-day conference exploring the challenges of family work implementation.
The cost of attending this one-day event is £125 (Limited free places are available for service users and carers). To register your interest or book a place now please contact Sam Farooq: Email: [email protected] or by phone Tel: 0121 301 2888.
‘Understanding Psychosis’ Why people sometimes hear voices, believe things that others find strange, or appear out of touch with reality …and what can help……
The British Psychological Society (BPS) revised version of the report is available and can be downloaded free of charge from www.understandingpsychosis.net and is the first Society document to be published under a Creative Commons licence. This means it can be freely distributed as long as a proper credit is given to the original publisher (BPS News).
Congratulations to Dr Gráinne Fadden, Director, Meriden Family Programme on receiving the British Association for Behavioural & Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP) Fellowship Award.This award is in recognition of her research, training, clinical and service development contributions in the field of family work over the whole of her career.
Here is Dr Fadden being presented with the award by Professor Chris Williams, President of the BABCP at the BABCP annual conference at the University of Manchester on 25th July, 2017
Here is Mr Thomas Walunguba, Programme Director, Behavioural Family Therapy Programme Uganda, receiving the Meriden Family Programme International Award. This was awarded to Thomas in recognition of the impact he has had on mental health services across Uganda since his visit to the UK in 2012. More can be read about this in our latest newsletter here.
Thomas Walunguba (centre) receiving the Meriden International Award from
(right) Dr Ogwang Alfred Francis the Hospital Director
(far right) Stella Olar, Senior Psychiatric Clinical Officer
(far left) Gladys Canikale, Psychiatric Nursing Officer and
(left ) Joyce Namuli, Senior Principal Nursing Officer at Moroto R.R. Hospital, Uganda
The Meriden Family Programme will be twenty years old next year. The first training course in Behavioural Family Therapy as part of a UK West Midlands initiative took place in April 1998, and the first course for Trainers and Supervisors as part of the West Midlands initiative was in October 1998.
I don’t think that any of us thought at that time that the programme would go from strength to strength. As I write this we have trained 5454 number of people to deliver family work, with 506 trainers in ten different countries.
We will be holding a celebratory event in Solihull, just outside Birmingham on 19th June 2018, followed by a one day conference on family work themes on Wednesday 20th June. More details to follow, but put the date in your diary!
Martin Atchison, Deputy Director, Jeanette Partridge, Carer Consultant with the Meriden Family Programme and Jo Twiss, Service User have written a chapter in the text book ‘Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing: The craft of caring’. The chapter is called Family involvement and support networks (Chapter 51 – Pgs 559 to 569).
The chapter seeks to encourage mental health nurses to appreciate the importance of involving the service user’s social networks in their working practice, and to impress upon the reader the vital role that family and friends can play in the recovery of their loved one.
Diverse Roles for Occupational Therapists (2016) Edited by Jane Clewes and Rob Kirkwood November 2016 • M&K Publishing ISBN: 9781910451069
Paula Conneely, Occupational Therapist and Clinical Specialist with the Meriden Family Programme, has contributed a chapter to the newly published ‘Diverse Roles for Occupational Therapists (2016)’ Occupational Therapy text entitled “Working with Families” (Chapter 13 – Pgs 195 to 210).
In it, Paula describes her work with the Meriden Programme, the nature of family work and why she feels OTs make great family work practitioners, supervisors and trainers. In addition, she presents a case study from her own clinical practice to reinforce the benefits of family work and highlight the links between family work and Occupational Therapy’.
“Occupational therapists get everywhere it would seem and this book is testament to the breadth of roles being undertaken by occupational therapists in the UK today. The diversity of practice settings that appear to be available to occupational therapists is certainly a strong factor that draws people in to the profession…. This book offers a rich context from which to reflect upon your own experience, broaden your understanding and triangulate your knowledge.” (M & K Publishing, 2017)
