News & Events

Consulting with Parent/Carers for Children and Young Persons Advisory Group 
Although numbers of children and adolescents affected by mental health legislation in Scotland may be comparatively small in relation to adults, it is still an area that requires review and scrutiny to ensure compliance with UNCRPD and crucially United Nations Convention on Rights of the Child. To assist with this, the Child and Adolescent Advisory Group have begun to consult with children, young people and their parents/carers. 
In carrying out this consultation with parents/carers I have been assisted by another member of the Child and Adolescent Advisory Group, Kathleen Taylor. To date we have between us spoken with over 25 parent/carers, with another 8 still to be consulted. It can be hard for anyone to recognise themselves as a carer, but it can be particularly difficult if you are a parent of child or young person with mental health problems. The Carers (Scotland) Act 2016 makes it clear that a person is not a carer “in the case of a cared-for person under 18 years old, to the extent that the care is or would be provided by virtue of the person’s age” This then avoids all parents of dependent children automatically being carers within the Act. But parents of dependant children with additional care and support needs can still be carers to the extent that the care is or would be provided by virtue of something other than the child’s age. For those parents/carers of a child or young person with a diagnosed mental health problem, learning disability or autism they would be carers due to the fact that the person requires additional care and support needs. Helping parents to realise this, and accept it, can be very challenging.
To support us in reaching out to parents and carers of children or young people using child and adolescent mental health services we turned to some of the National Carer Organisations in Scotland, namely Carers Trust Scotland, Coalition of Carers and Carers Scotland and we would like to thank them for their support in this. The challenging part of gathering evidence from parent/carers at a time of restrictions due to COVID 19 was getting the chance to meet with them and to give them time and space to talk. Many parent/carers did not want to come together as a group (as part of a zoom discussion for instance) as they did not want to share their child’s story with others. For some carers, those already in established groups, such as Family Connect, a service run by Enable, the carers were fine with discussing issues as a group as they found the peer support from others in similar situations helpful.
As we are still gathering evidence from parent/carers it would not be the right time to discuss any findings coming forward. However, there is a sense that when services work with families and wrap around the child/young person better outcomes are seen. More of this will be discussed as the review continues and we have an analysis of the consultation responses.
Finally I would like to take this opportunity to thank Kathleen for all her support with this and to thank the generosity of time parents/carers have given us in telling their experiences and of giving us their views of what could be done differently or what could be seen as best practice.
Karen Martin

I was asked to be part of the Children and Young Persons Advisory Group because of my lived experience as a parent carer and it is something that I very much want to contribute to. I also work with carers as part of my role at the Mental Welfare Commission but am personally on my third trip through CAMHS with my children so feel my lived experience is extensive and valuable. 
It can be hard to accurately describe experiences from a caring perspective because, by default, the experiences are often not ours alone. We must protect those we care for, their confidentiality, privacy and need for autonomy and respect.
Most parents, however, will do anything for their children and to watch your child suffer must be one of the worst experiences we can have. 
Being excluded from the process to try and help them can be intolerable and damaging.
In my experience confidentiality, while important, can unfortunately be used as a barrier to communication among children, professionals and families. 
Assuming a family is caring and has the best interests of a child at heart is not the default position in mental health settings. Unfortunately, there is still a blame culture felt by many families who feel judged, patronised and dismissed.
For young people with ongoing mental health problems, including families from the outset, unless they are shown to be part of the problem, would have many advantages not least that staff could approach individuals with a spirit of openness rather than mistrust when discussing information sharing. 
In this way, we can move towards preserving vital relationships within families to allow them to care for their child moving forward. 
The legislation we are discussing provides safeguards for the minority of children who are detained but most young people who have serious mental health problems are in the community. 
Parents have the lifelong responsibility for negotiating with organisations including mental health services, education, social services, DWP and employment agencies for their child and it makes no sense to exclude them in any way. 
The suspicion and secrecy that can surround information sharing is at best unhelpful but can seriously damage family relationships 
Appropriate help needs to be guaranteed for these young people, many of whom will have missed long periods of education, to move forward with life and maximise their potential. 
Help must also be available for their families who may well be coping with many other challenges including jobs, unemployment and other children.
An absence of acute symptoms does not mean recovery and we owe it to these young people to help them forge a meaningful path through life. This support needs to be meaningful and must be carried on through transition and into adult services. 
My experience has shown that this is sadly not the case.
My hope is that we can use this process to help improve the care we give to our young people with mental health problems and safeguard their rights to a future while supporting their families.
Kathleen Taylor

Hello everyone, thank you so much for inviting me to speak today, I won’t speak for that long but I hope what I say makes sense.
My name is Graham Morgan; I work for the Mental Welfare Commission which is all about rights and I have spent most of my working life working with advocacy groups that, even more perhaps, have rights as the centre of the work they do.
In some ways I have a small problem with rights. I think it is the conflict it implies; &#8211; we the goodies will stand up for our rights against the baddies. We will set the world straight and ensure that no one suffers because of the way the bad people treat the vulnerable people. But to divide the world and services into goodies and baddies seems pretty crass to me, to reduce how we deal with the sadness of our souls to statements of law seems almost irrelevant and yet at the same time vital in a world where, increasingly, marginalised people have less and less voice and and less and less dignity.
In the world of mental illness there is a history and justification to that mantra about human rights: that ‘let’s eliminate the abuse’ mantra, that let us ensure we are treated with respect; that we always do have that dignity, however difficult or complicated our lives have become. 
After all it was also mentally ill people who were subject to the worst of the holocaust that made the United Nations Declaration for Human Rights so important so many years ago. And the history of the asylums in this country hardly makes for comfortable memories and, nowadays, the fact people like me die, on average, twenty years earlier, that travesty of compassion that our UK benefits system represents, the difficulty of getting treatment or a hospital bed when desperate, the continuing judgement about people with a diagnosis of personality disorder, the overwhelming loneliness and isolation people experience as a daily reality that stretches for month after month after month. The fact that almost no one with my diagnosis is working, the austerity agenda where for some reason we are expected to say things will, of course get better, despite greatly increased demand and fewer staff and resources. These are all rights issues, compulsory treatment is, restraint is, seclusion is, even the unrelenting boredom of a hospital ward where there is nothing to do all day except watch tele and try not to smoke too publicly. These are all rights issues and there are so many more.
They burn keenly in the heart of all good people, how can you fail to be indignant at the person who has, at last, plucked up the courage to seek help, who is trembling inside with tiredness and fear; who has that white unhappy sweat about them; who feels there is nothing left for them but who, when they seek help and sanctuary, are turned away; told to see the GP in the morning and yet who are found a few hours later at the same hospital, but this time accompanied by the police and sectioned, or worse; are found later but they are no longer speaking; no longer able to get help. 
And how can you not be dismayed when you hear of a person who tries and tries to speak about their concerns and is not listened to, is labelled as manipulative or over bearing; a part of the problem, while they watch their child fade to nothing. 
Or the patient who begs the nurses not to let anyone know they are in hospital, still, after all these years, consumed with the shame that being in a mental hospital embodies.
Or the homeless person; worn ragged by their voices, who is so abandoned by the system that they would never dream of getting help, feels alienated and abused by nearly every other passer by.
It is a long never ending list. I have worked in mental health for nearly thirty years, I have been diagnosed with a mental illness for 35 years. I know what it is like to be in one of the old asylums, with the crowded beds, the holes in the walls, the noise; and in later years have known what it is like to have to go to the toilet in front of people, to have the light on 24 hours a day for week after week; am very familiar with the never ending succession of tribunals around my community treatment order, know what it is to have people avoid me because of my illness. Even know what it is like to have the closest of family members say that while most mental illness is acceptable that mine puts me beyond the pale. 
In fact as an unashamed plug you can read all about it in my book START that was published a few weeks ago.
It is a very simple and easy job to find someone else to blame for the injustice, the inequality, the sheer horror that life with a mental illness can represent. It is exceptionally easy to blame the people who are there in our lives to try to help us. 
And that of course is not surprising, we all know that there are no simple cures to mental illness, that there are no magic words or hugs or pills, no occupation or state of mind that would, in an instant, free people of suffering if only we would open our hearts to it. But it is easy to see how, when we are desperate and turn to someone for help and they cannot find a solution for us that we can grow bitter and sad and it is easy when in the anxiety and fear that comes when we summon up the courage to get help, that we can become angry and upset when the person, who has seen it all before, says that the appointment is over, and that from now on we will need to set up a contract for when and where we can speak to our helpers about our fears and our unutterable loneliness.
But I worry about this, the easy targets to blame for the utter sadness we go through. Because however much I want to see malice around me and to demonise my helpers or the world I cannot really do this any longer.
My CPN is lovely; encouraging and warm and enthusiastic and very perceptive. My psychiatrist; who I am angry at because he is a locum and I don’t approve of locums, is giving me the treatment I need, is keeping me safe and, much as I find it confusing, keeping me alive. Even though I am not too sure I would ever want to share a coffee with him or go on a walk with him, I am glad he is there.
And I find this wherever I go, when I visit hospitals as part of my work with the Commission I often hear of times when people are dismayed at the condition of the wards, both staff and patients and carers, but when I ask the patients about the staff they do usually tend to say they are very good, very committed; if too busy. When I ask them about home they may say they live in a difficult situation but that they often have wonderful support workers who make up for the fractured families they have come from.
When I speak to managers; who the ward staff may want to see as the agents of change; I often meet people who are also struggling to make ends meet, keen to try something or anything to make a creaking system better and sometimes just plain old unable to because we are not all the geniuses who know how to make less money do so much more work. 
When I meet the policy makers, I tend to see people burning to improve the system and the politicians when, occasionally I meet them, they too seem committed but sometimes unable to command the resources they would want or to instruct the organisations that have to live under the laws they create, to do the things they would want to; because by doing so, an aching hole in another budget would open up or a staff group threaten to go on strike or one of a million things I have only a sketchy knowledge of would happen.
What I am very painfully trying to say, is that there are usually no ‘them’ that are seeking to deny us rights and life. Just a complex and deeply unfair world. I have never met any worker whose mission in life is to see how miserable they can make their clients, I am sure such people do exist somewhere but I have never met them. 
I think, that between us all: the goodies, the baddies the in betweens; we are all struggling painfully and with difficulty to make life better for each other and that sometimes we make mistakes and that sometimes we are arrogant in our assumption that we know what is best for people but despite the odd foul exception: those people who do indeed live with hate in their hearts; we are all, in our different and often bungling ways, trying to make a difference.
And this is where I will finish; this time with an example. In HUG, the group I used to work with in the Highlands; we carried out a lot of awareness training with professionals and the public and with young people.
Key to that training was a determination not to have the answer or the model or the way of thinking that people needed to live up to. Instead, we spoke our stories; the good and the bad of them. But we did not demonise and we did not say our treatment would have been wonderful if it wasn’t for so and so who was just like all social workers or nurses or whatever.
I think letting testimony stand and letting people make their own mind up makes a huge difference. I am optimistic in that I believe that giving people their own opportunity to think and consider rather than demanding they do as we say, think as we think, leads to much better services; much freer and more honest beliefs.. 
And I also think it makes people want to make a difference themselves, I think, for a time in HUG, we were very good at helping professionals, family, patients, politicians, managers and the public think that what we needed to do was to work together to make a difference and indeed to believe that we were working together: that no one was the enemy.
When we don’t spend our energy allocating blame and instead look for solutions to the injustice we experience then of course we can make a difference and who we are and what we are is irrelevant. As fellow humans witnessing distress our inclination is to lesson that distress; it’s only when other people point the finger again and again and say we are the very cause of the problem that we become angry and defensive and refuse to speak to each other, start to alienate each other.
I used to work in the Highlands, but sometimes down in the central belt; I meet young people who witnessed our training or experienced our plays in the schools many years ago in Highland and sometimes I find out that it was meeting us that made them become the psychiatric nurses that they are today. 
I met one a few months ago, she now works in a secure hospital, loves it and is busy with different frameworks with rights as their basis. That is how it happens; it implies trust; it implies belief in each other.
When life is hard, it is incredibly easy to blame other people and, of course it is : we all need explanations even when there aren’t any. However when we reach out to each other and trust each other even when that trust is difficult and may be betrayed that seems to be the way to address rights, that is how we create dignity and community and belonging. 
The more we feel we belong and are a part of, the more likely we are to be able to promote rights and reduce injustice. 
It is incredibly difficult to oppress another person when they believe in you, when they trust you, when they smile at you, it’s possible of course and that may be why some of us ended up in the situations we are in.
And much as I hate models or ways of living it is much harder to get lost in different thoughts and realities, it is much harder to become isolated and alone when you know that however you are behaving and however sad you are, people are still there for you, still want your life to be better, still reach out to you despite it all; despite the anger we naturally feel at our situations and lives. 
I suppose I really am an old hippy but I do believe in connection and community even when personally I find it hard to get to know my neighbours and I do believe that the solution to the injustices we face will occur when any professional or for that matter member of the public naturally knows that the bed rock of what we all do is about dignity and belonging and that of course is what underlies all human rights legislation. That need for community and belonging also includes us, the people with experience of mental ill health, who so often are the people abandoned and excluded, so often the people who feel they are not listened to, feel that the assumption that they have rights makes a mockery of their reality. 
And in a very long winded way that is why I think incorporating rights into everyone’s practice is so important.
Thank you.

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ALLIANCE Live Interview with John Scott. 
Tuesday 10 March 2020 
Melting Pot – Edinburgh
In this Q&#038;A session Irene Oldfather from The Alliance interviews John Scott QC about the Scottish Mental Health Law Review. Click on the interview to hear John’s response to the following questions: 
Q: Can you tell me about the scope of the Review and why it’s needed?
Q: How are you going to ensure that people and communities get involved?
Q: So, for anyone watching this who has a story to tell how can they participate?
Q: Are there any big ticket issues that you’ve already identified that need attention?
Q: Lots of people are interested in Power of Attorney – do you think that will be about changing the law or the Guidance?
Q: There’s been some criticism about the current legislation not sufficiently protecting human rights – is that fair? How will you take that forward?
Q: What’s the timeframe for the Review?
Irene Oldfather – The Alliance

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In this question and answer session with John, we explore how COVID-19 has impacted the work of the review, including a change in the way we engage with our stakeholders, what we can expect the interim report to look like and how you can still get involved in the consultation. John also tells us about his new role and how the pandemic has affected him. Click on the link to listen to John’s response to the following questions;
Q: it’s been a while since your last interview John, and I think it’s fair to say that things have taken quite a dramatic turn since then. The Coronavirus pandemic has affected everybody in different ways, how has this affected you?
Q: What provisions have been made on the review to accommodate for your change in circumstances and shift in priorities for many of our stakeholders?
Q: So far we are uncertain about when the current social distancing measures will change, if things continue this way, will this change future plans for the review, particularly plans to consult with people in phase 2?
Q: We have seen a number of changes in the law in response to the pandemic, including temporary changes to mental health law, introduced by the Coronavirus Act. Can you explain a bit more about these emergency provisions and the impact these changes could have on the work of the review?
Q: For people out there who would like to contribute but don’t feel that they are in a position to do so at the moment, what advice would you give them?
Sophie Ryder – Secretariat

In January 2020 I took on a role I never thought would happen; I became part of the executive team reviewing Scotland’s mental health legislation.
I say I never thought it would happen not because I didn’t believe I had the skills, experience and knowledge of this area to do such a role, but my involvement was sought because I am a carer of someone who has mental health problems and it was that perspective the executive team wanted.
They also wanted the valuable perspective of a person who had been subject to the law and so I was joined on the team by Graham Morgan.
The inclusion of myself and Graham means that the review can be guided not just by a legal and academic approach, but also from a personal and lived experience perspective.
We need to hear from as many people as possible who have been impacted by mental health legislation
So, what’s it been like? It’s actually been both very interesting and daunting. Interesting because what we are doing is reviewing a large and complex area of legislation through the lens of the Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) to ensure the legislation is enacted in a way which aligns, as much as possible, with the CRPD.
Daunting because mental health legislation is huge and the people involved range from those directly impacted by it, service users, carers and families, to clinicians, independent advocates, lawyers, mental health officers etc. It can at times feel like herding cats! But that’s what I love; the challenge of gathering views/concerns/issues and then looking at what can be done.
We are in the first phase of the review, gathering evidence and this is where you come in.
We need to hear from as many people as possible who have either been impacted by mental health legislation, and from people who have a role to play in using the legislation.
If you are reading this because you are interested in what the review is doing and have a view on mental health legislation or have been affected by it, please get in touch with us.
Given the current climate in relation to the threat of the coronavirus, we are now asking if people can respond individually or collectively via the online consultation.
What you tell us will help guide us to which parts of the legislation is working well and which parts need to be looked at and that the legislation remains fit for purpose, is not overly restrictive and keeps the person at the centre of all decisions made under the legislation.
As I say this is the first phase, we will be coming back and asking more questions and gathering more views as the review progresses, but if you want to contribute you still have plenty of time to share your views.
As a carer and named person for my husband, I can only stress to other carers and named persons please come forward with your views/issues/experiences of mental health law.
by Karen Martin

It is Monday morning and time for my jag again, or at least I think it is. I got a note saying all appointments with my CMHT were cancelled for 12 weeks a few days ago but at the same time I have an appointment for today and I am on a community compulsory treatment order so I assume that I will get my injection in an hours time.
It is a hard time for all of us at the moment; in my small family we have so far been ok if a bit bored and frustrated. The children worry most I think, being young and yet old enough to sort of understand what is happening they have nightmares and miss their friends terribly. Dash the dog seems most affected; he misses his walks with all the other dogs and has started scratching himself awfully. But absolutely tiny problems compared to what many of you will be going through.
With my work on the executive of the review into Scottish Mental Health Legislation I feel frustrated. Just before lockdown I had been out with the secretariat on visits, including people with lived experience and their friends and family, in Edinburgh, Oban and Mull and had had a wonderful if sad series of conversations which were very helpful and confirmed a lot of what I thought we might be finding out.
I joined the Executive fairly recently and have personal experience of the mental health act. I have had a diagnosis of Schizophrenia for the last 30 years and have had a number of hospital admissions on sections and have now been compulsorily treated in the community for the last ten years. If you want a more detailed record of my views about this then do read my book START.
I have also been involved in, what might once have been called, the User Movement for the last 37 years. I set up a drop in centre run by young people for young people when I was in my early twenties and then worked in Lothian in my late twenties where I was the first worker for CAPS and helped establish a number of collective advocacy groups and also worked alongside the Royal Edinburgh Patients Council on their management committee and helped with the early days with Advocard, all the time helping create a voice for our community.
After that I moved up to Highland where is set up HUG (action for mental health) which quickly gained an international reputation for its work both in speaking out and in challenging stigma and in its work with young people. As part of that I was a member of the Millan Review and the McManus review which both played a major role in our current legislation. I also helped a person with learning disabilities set up People First Highland while I was there and played some part in the initial Highland Advocacy Strategy.
I have now left Highland; live in Argyll and work part time for the Mental Welfare Commission as an engagement and participation officer. As part of that role I am often in different parts of Scotland meeting groups of people with lived experience and sometimes their friends and family, finding out how life is in their communities.
Part of that work has involved a number of consultations with people on their experiences and views on compulsory treatment and capacity and then a consultation on how people can be supported to make decisions when they are seen as acutely ill. The reports of these two consultations are on the MWC website. I am presently writing up a report of people’s views on how people can find out what our will and preference is when we are ill and when we are well.
As part of the work on compulsory treatment, I have spoken in Geneva to agencies charged with protecting people’s rights when they have been detained and with the United Nations Committee against Torture as well as at the Kings College Transnational Summit on Human Rights and the Law.
Despite having a great deal of personal experience and work experience finding out peoples view on detention I come to this review with mixed feelings. The legislation that applies to us fundamentally affects our freedom and our autonomy but also our right to health and life and the whole host of cultural economic and social rights that apply to us. I very much hope that, despite the greater restrictions the virus is subjecting us, to that we end up with legislation that leads to a much, much, better life for those of us subject to it.
But and it is a huge but; there is such diversity of opinion from people about what we need. I know some people who think any form of compulsory treatment is an abuse of power and akin to torture but also I have met people who view the death of their children as a failing of the mental health system and feel that if they had been sectioned they might have lived. I have a superb quality of life but many of my friends live in poverty and live lives where friendship is rare and hope a distant prospect. I also hear people say “What is the point in legislation when we cannot even get the basic help we need?” Balancing these views and listening to these varied perspectives worries me. It will be hard to do and will be hugely emotional but at the same time it is a great privilege to be a part of this process.
Currently I keep in touch with the rest of the executive and the secretariat remotely and now that it is impossible to meet people face to face am working on my troubled thoughts on how the human rights model of disability applies to all the situations we can find ourselves in and on just what the key issues around our social cultural and economic rights are for when we establish that advisory group. I am still to attend a meeting of the advisory group we have established on compulsion but very much look forward to meeting its members once we are in a position to do so.
I am excited and at the same time apprehensive about this review, I hope it delivers what so many people want it to, I hope if it doesn’t meet everyone’s expectations that they at least feel they have been heard. I hope what we end up creating is based on the reality of people’s daily lives and is not dictated by fashion and the politics which sometimes make things happen and sometimes leave reality behind. I look forward to meeting as many people as I can, as part of the work of the review team once we are in a position to do so.      
by Graham Morgan
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News & Events

Consulting with Parent/Carers for Children and Young Persons Advisory Group

How I became involved in the Review by Kathleen Taylor

Mental Health and Rights Everyones Business by Graham Morgan

The Alliance interview John Scott QC

A conversation with John Scott QC

Scottish Mental Health Law Review – my experience so far

Personal experience