I’ve been back at home 2 weeks now, was I really away? I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Australia. The People I have been privileged to work with were brilliant. It is true what they say about Australians they are great company, laid back, friendly & open, love a good debate and very social justice focussed. I had to work hard, think hard and be very creative.
What was extra good was that I had the evenings to myself, so I had 5 weeks of self care, reading, walking, visiting new places, so although the work was tiring I have come back full of energy, happy, confident in my facilitation and 14lb lighter.
After a few days of lovely weather, winter seems to have arrived with a vengeance, we have had a lot of windy stormy weather & already the croft is looking water logged.
The doom & gloom of the British economy is at such a different place to the booming Australian economy. America is also in a bad way & mental health services seem to be particularly badly hit.
Its ironic really as research has clearly shown that mental health needs go up during a recession, yet spending goes down.
Ron is in a writing phase, he is rewriting recovery an alien concept at the moment, and hopefully it will be finished in time for the world congress.
The voices course with Dirk & Eleanor went very well; with fantastic outcomes for the voice hearers & workers who came. The week was filmed & shortly there will be a new training manual, workbook & DVD based on the training.
Our website is also being redesigned so it should be much simpler to use.
Ron & I will be in Lille in 3 weeks time where they are going to launch the French hearing voices network, this is a very exciting development as France joins the rest of Europe in taking hearing voices work forward.
Ron Coleman and Karen Taylor have an international reputation as speakers and authors. They are the directors of ‘Working to Recovery Limited’ an innovative international consultancy, training and publishing company with a cutting edge approach to supporting and improving mental health provision.
