Polly Trope

'Mr. Fox's Night Out' animation film

'Mr. Fox's Night Out' is the animation short created by south London animators, musicians and scriptwriters.

Successfully shown at the Wimbledon Film Festival, the film is a triumph of collaboration by a team of creative people who happen to come from backgrounds of mental illness.

2013 Review of the Year

It has been a momentous year for JVT.  The first showing of an original animation short film at an international festival.  The creation of an original music soundtrack and a fresh round of music production and animation workshops.  'Mister Fox's Night Out'

The best part of 2013 is that all this original art work - animation, soundtrack, scriptwriting was the outcome of teamwork by of people who often are not given the chance to participate in creative projects of any kind.  The reason?  Due to the stigma that still surrounds the whole vexed area of mental health conditions.

Let's try and unpack this a bit.  The word 'stigma' is bandied around a great deal when it comes to questions of mental health.  It has become a bit of a buzzword, an unexamined concept in many ways.

Is there really a stigma around mental ill-health? Is there really anything preventing anyone regardless of their mental health, from doing anything he or she might wish to do in mainstream society?

In some ways there is no such thing as stigma.  Most mainstream venues are open for anyone to use, whether they happen to be service providers, community groups or commercial organisations.

I don't see art galleries, music studios, libraries, shops actively discrimating against people with mental health conditions.  Also, these providers are legally bound under equality administration as well as their own policies and insurance agreements, to provide equal access to all consumers of their services.

Undoubtedly, there is discrimination by some employers and stigma unfortunately still exists in the job market.

There is also what might be called a 'sideways' stigma that comes from unlikely areas, even from health services that can be closely involved with mental health recovery.

For example, it is still quite common for arts projects involving people with mental health conditions to be identified as or sourced from therapies.  Nothing wrong with therapies but the approach can still tie individuals down to their diagnoses.

A therapy, arts or otherwise, addresses a care need that is related to a clinical condition.  It does not directly address an aspirational need nor does it address individuals' goals, hopes and dreams.  That does not mean to say that therapies do not enable people to make progress in their recovery pathways.  They can often be crucial.

However, it is only when individuals can be signposted to mainstream areas matched to their stated and chosen goals and interests that substantial self and group development takes place.

Access to mainstream has been part of the philosophy of health recovery and social inclusion for the best part of thirty years.  In terms of social inclusion it goes back to the civil rights movement and even further.

I applaud the makers and collaborators of 'Mister Fox's Night Out' for their bold venture into the world of mainstream creative arts.

Polly Trope 'Cured Meat' book and film launch

Bob Dylan's 'Shelter from the Storm'

Mister Fox's Night Out - the complete short movie

Mister Fox's Night Out - the complete short movie with original animation and soundtrack music.

Mister Fox's Night Out film screening

'Legenderry Sky' new video

Asylum from the madness trailer

Umbrella Infographics

umbrella promotes the projects infographic

'Beautiful Relics' trailer out now!

Why mainstream is a 'must' for mental health and social inclusion

Current initiatives around mental health focus on three key areas of support, anti-stigma and therapy. A fourth area 'recovery' is also an important part of the debate.

'Recovery' is controversial and misunderstood.  Recovery can be associated with 'cure' and the concept of a 'cure' in mental ill-health is not always helpful.  That is not to say that people with mental health conditions never talk of being cured or completely recovered.  Some do.

The predominant experience of living with a long-term mental health condition is one of managing symptoms and maintaining a life.

So recovery becomes a form of health management that allows for hopes, dreams and aspirations to develop and continue according to an individual's wishes and choices.

Thinking around recovery is intimately linked with ideas and concepts of social inclusion.  These ideas go back a long way.  They have their roots in the civil rights movement.  Activist Rosa Parkes' refusal to vacate a bus seat reserved for whites in Alabama Mississippi in 1955 marks a crucial moment in the history of social inclusion.  In some ways it changed everything.

As recently as the early 2000s social inclusion formed a major part of UK government thinking.  It was developed under the (then) office of the deputy prime minister and had a strong impact on policy and funding streams.

Along with recovery and social inclusion is a third term - 'mainstream'.

Mainstream is a key part of social inclusion and recovery because it is in the mainstream world that someone with a mental health condition is required to live, just as we all are.

With the knowledge that 'recovery takes place regardless of symptoms or problems' (New Horizons 2008), individuals with mental health diagnoses have the right to access mainstream areas without prejudice.  Someone with a mental health condition has dreams, hopes, aspirations and goals and it is only in the mainstream world where these have a chance of realisation.

In line with this thinking and policy-making, a whole body of materials was created in the early 2000s to help organisations make mainstream social inclusion possible.  By the mid-2000s third sector organisation working in mental health were often more likely to receive commissions and funding the more they could show a commitment to promoting mainstream.

The old way of thinking that limited people with long-term conditions to handouts, clinical settings, day centres and drop-ins was fast being re-shaped and re-made.

Mainstream recovery approaches are fast disappearing under the tide of cuts to funding and changes in commissioning.  It is an initiative in danger of being consigned to the category of yet another transitory trend in mental health and social inclusion.  This is despite the fact that referral to mainstream is highly cost-effective and has a deep impact on the lives of individuals.