In March 2001, Bapu Trust for Research on Mind and Discourse published India’s first advocacy newsletter, aaina. The aim was to provide a forum to discuss critical issues concerning mental health and the rights of persons with psycho-social disabilities. The hope was that this would enable sustaining alliances between groups and individuals concerned with these issues and promote advocacy. Seven years later, aaina has grown to represent the collective voice of mental health service users/survivors and campaigners in India, with consistent messages of user empowerment, good practice, policy, legal and social reform in the mental health sector in India.

The Centre for Advocacy in Mental Health proposes to publish a book based on the back issues of aaina, which will mark the consolidation of almost a decade’s work in mental health in India. The book, to be published in 2009, will be edited by Jayasree Kalathil, who was also the founding editor of aaina. You can browse the back issues of aaina here.

‘Different Tales,’ a project of Anveshi Research Centre for Women’s Studies in Hyderabad, India, aims to produce a series of stories for children between the ages of 8 and 12. All stories deal with themes that are not usually covered in mainstream children’s story books, and highlight the resilience of children from disadvantaged and marginalised communities. The decision to produce these books were based on the findings of a three year project that looked at children's books and what was available to children from marginalised communities.

A set of ten books each is being produced in three languages – in English and in two South Indian languages, Malayalam and Telugu. Jayasree Kalathil is editing the ten Malayalam books. She has also been commissioned to write a book exploring the idea of mental distress. The books will be published by DC Books, Kottayam, in early 2009.

This work, commissioned by the National Survivor User Network (NSUN), explored what user involvement means for service users/survivors from Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) backgrounds. Research in the field suggests that there is an "under-representation" of service users from BME backgrounds in user involvement initiatives. What does this mean? What have been some of the experiences of “being involved” in mainstream user groups and in policy-driven involvement initiatives, like participation in advisory committees and consultation within mental health services? Does involvement constitute positive change in the way in which people from BME communities experience mental health services?

The evidence base for this study was created through focus group discussions and interviews with service users with a range of experiences in user involvement work. The report of this work is expected to be published in 2009. Meanwhile, you can read a summary of the findings here.

We know very little about how the Mental Capacity Act (MCA), which received Royal Assent in 2005 and came into full effect on the 1 October 2007, is understood amongst BME communities. What efforts are going on in raising more awareness and supporting communities in engaging with the MCA? This work, commissioned by the Mental Health Foundation, aimed to describe the extent to which BME communities have been able to engage with the MCA and to identify factors that successfully promote engagement.

The data was collected using one-to-one interviews with representatives of key voluntary sector, community and service user organisations. You can download a free copy of the report here.

INVOLVE, an organisation working to increase user involvement in health, social care and public health research, recently commissioned Shaping Our Lives, The Centre for Citizen Participation (Brunel University) and the Social Perspectives Network to carry out a survey of user-controlled research projects. The aim of the survey was to gather information about all user-controlled research projects since 2002.

Survivor Research’s role was to gather information about user-controlled research from Black and Minority Ethnic communities in mental health. User-controlled research was defined as research that is actively controlled, directed and managed by service users and their organisations. Service users decide on the issues and questions to be looked at, control the research design, planning and writing up, run the advisory or steering group and may also decide to carry out research.

Shaping Our Lives and SPN are in the process of finalising the report of the survey. Meanwhile you can read the comments we made, based on our role in this work.