Bipolar UK’s Women, Pregnancy & Childbirth Workshop
Are you a woman with bipolar, or concerned about the potential of bipolar, who would like more information about pregnancy and childbirth?
Bipolar UK Chair of Trustees Clare Dolman (who has bipolar and is a mother of two) and perinatal psychiatrist Professor Ian Jones invite you to join them at Bipolar UK’s Women, Pregnancy and Childbirth Workshop to discuss the choices facing women with bipolar who are thinking about pregnancy.
Date: Friday 20 September 2013
Time: 10.30am - 1.00pm
Venue: Victoria Charity Centre, 11 Belgrave Road, London, SW1V 1RB
Attendance is free as the workshop is being supported by Bipolar UK and Cardiff University. Our experience is that these workshops are very popular. If after confirming your place you are unable to attend please let us know and we will be able to offer the availability to another. We will be seeking a late cancellation charge of £20 for anyone not attending on the day and not informing us by Sunday 15 September.
Places are limited, so please confirm your attendance with Sally Roberts on sroberts@bipolaruk.org.uk or 020 7931 6480.
APP Attend SAPPHIRE Stigma Summit
APP were well-represented at the SAPPHIRE Stigma Summit in London this month.
Trustee Clare Dolman and member Ceri Rose manned the APP stall and its neighbour promoting the Maternal Mental Health Alliance. Both organisations attracted interest from many of the 400 delegates who were gathered at the Institute of Psychiatry, London, to discuss the impact of stigma and discrimination in mental health.
Recorded excerpts from the Radio 4 documentary ‘Unravelling Eve’ (involving several APP members) were also played at the Summit, which was also attended by project artist Joan Molloy.
Comic Relief Funding for Maternal Mental Health Campaign
Comic Relief has awarded the Maternal Mental Health Alliance (MMHA) £250k to run a Maternal Mental Health Campaign over three years.
The Maternal Mental Health Alliance (MMHA) is a coalition of thirty UK organisations committed to better mental health & wellbeing for women & their children in pregnancy & the first postnatal year, in order to improve long-term outcomes for mothers, fathers & children.
This funding is a result of work undertaken earlier this year to develop a Theory of Change for the campaign and the coming together of our organisations to harness our collective strength. Action on Postpartum Psychosis will act as official host / applicant.
This is wonderful news, not only does this provide necessary resources; it also highlights the huge importance of Maternal Mental Health in general. THANK YOU Comic Relief!!
APP will have a promotional stall at a major mental health conference next week: the SAPPHIRE Stigma Summit (research programme on stigma and discrimination in mental health) held in London on Thursday, July 4th.
Health Minister Norman Lamb, Charles Walker MP and Frank Bruno are among the guest speakers at the summit, the theme of which is "Sharing Stories to Stop Stigma'.
Tickets are still available (only £10 for service users), see the website for details www.sapphire.iop.kcl.
Each year the RCGP (Royal College of General Practitioners) chooses four clinical areas and supports efforts to raise the profile and awareness of these areas both within general practice and across primary care as a whole. The RCGP also works in partnership with key decision-makers and opinion-formers in each area on projects that seek to improve both the quality of care provided and patient outcomes. Click here for further details
We're supporting a bid to the RCGP to get “Perinatal Mental Health” accepted as one of their clinical priorities for 2014-17.
For this we need to collect as many letters of support as possible from individuals and organisations explaining why important for GPs to receive specific training in perinatal mental health.
Perinatal Mental Health; The National Training Course 2013
Preventing suffering in this generation
& the next
20 and 21 June 2013
Winchester Cathedral, UK
- Carefully planned comprehensive course
- national expert speakers
- great networking opportunity
- wonderful venue and location
For more details contact: Sue Wallis coursescentre@gmail.com
APP Nominated as Sotheby's 2013 Charity
From Friday 26th July, 2013 Sotheby's staff are to hold their Annual Staff Exhibition where the public can view and buy artwork created by members of Sotheby’s staff. The exhibition will continue, thereafter for 2 weeks, Monday to Friday, 9am till 5pm, at Sotheby’s London address: New Bond St Galleries, 34 -35 New Bond St, London, W1A 2AA
We are delighted to announce that APP has been nominated as its 2013 charity.
This wonderful support for APP is undertaken in memory of a well - loved colleague: Alice Montagu Douglas Scott (Alice Gibson-Watt) who, sadly, died recently. May we encourage you all to visit this wonderful exhibition during the 2 weeks it is showing this summer? .... perhaps buy reasonably priced artwork ? ... or, if this is not possible, perhaps buy a beautifully produced 2013 Staff Exhibition sale catalogue from Sotheby’s, in which you will also find brief details of APP's work?
Anti-stigma campaign shows drop in discrimination against people with mental health problems
A study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry has shown there has been an 11.5% reduction in average levels of discrimination.
Led by King's College London's Institute of Psychiatry (IoP), the study of England’s Time to Change anti-stigma programme (run by Mind and Rethink Mental Illness) provides the first evidence that it is possible to change the way the public treat people with mental health problems, but that a long term focus is needed to ensure that discrimination is removed from all areas of people’s lives.
Postpartum Depression: Surprising Rate of Women Depressed After Baby
A surprisingly high number of women have postpartum depressive symptoms, according to a new, large-scale study in the US.
This is the largest scale depression screening of postpartum women and the first time a full psychiatric assessment has been done in a study of postpartum women who screened positive for depression.
The study, which included a depression screening of 10,000 women who had recently delivered infants at single obstetrical hospital, revealed a large percentage of women who suffered recurrent episodes of major depression.
The study underscored the importance of prenatal as well as postpartum screening. Mothers' and infants' health and lives hang in the balance. The lives of several women who were suicidal when staff members called them for the screening were saved likely as a result of the study's screening and immediate intervention.
New Funding for National Campaign Development
Action on Postpartum Psychosis on behalf of the Maternal Mental Health Alliance has recently been awarded funds by Comic Relief to employ a Campaign Development Manager. The Campaign Development Manager, Emily Slater, is compiling key research about the impact of antenatal and postnatal mental illness, as well as working with a number of Alliance members and key stakeholders to develop an effective strategy for a future campaign (being launched, funding permitting, in spring 2014). The campaign is likely to call for all women in Great Britain to have equal access to quality treatment in the event of developing an antenatal or postnatal mental illness (including postpartum psychosis). The work of Emily and others is helping to ensure that this campaign call can be communicated in the most effective way to those policy-makers with most influence. It is an extremely exciting piece of work and APP is grateful to Comic Relief for funding this crucial development work.