Hamlet Trust has joined forces with Project North East (PNE), a UK organisation, to pilot a scheme to help people with mental health problems set up their own businesses in the north-east of England. While business start-up advice centres have long existed in the UK, the new Mainstreaming Business Support for Mental Health project is the first of its kind specifically designed to help people with mental health problems to start their own enterprises.

Hamlet Trust and PNE, with a grant from the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trust, have authored guidelines of how business counsellors and advisers can help these clients get the most from a meeting with them. The guidelines were authored with the help of business advisers in conjunction with mental health service users.

Lionel Joyce, a contributor to the project, is a shining example of how people with mental health problems can set up a successful firm. He remembers suffering his first bouts of depression when he was just teenager and spent 9 months in psychiatric hospitals as a young man. Despite his difficulties he rose to become the head of the Newcastle City Health Trust, and then in his late 50s he set up a management consultancy which works with health organisations to provide better care for mental health patients.

"People seem to feel as ashamed about depression as they do about schizophrenia even though it's all a normal part of life," he said. "I think I will be running the business for a long time. I can't ever see myself stopping as I know how important it is to give the patient a voice."

Click here to download the Mainstreaming Business Support for Mental Health guidelines. If you are a service user, business support professional or mental health professional and have any views on the guidelines, or are doing similar work and would like to discuss the project, contact Stuart Anderson at PNE by clicking here or phone 0191 261 6009.

Listen to interview on Radio Newcastle with Lionel Joyce and Stuart Anderson by clicking here!

Hamlet Trust is entering into a partnership with the Mental Health Foundation (MHF), a major NGO working in the areas of research, developing services, training, influencing policy and raising public awareness within the UK.

Peter Barham, Founder and Honorary President of Hamlet Trust, says, "This exciting initiative will see Hamlet and MHF working together on innovative new projects such as taking forward Article 12 of the WHO Action Plan for Mental Health, which relates to user empowerment and was agreed at the WHO European Ministerial Conference on Mental Health in Helsinki in January 2005." MHF and Hamlet Trust will be conducting research and working with local partners to draw up national strategies for user involvement for member states of the WHO European Region.

In the coming months Hamlet Trust will also be continuing with its current projects, which include:

“I have used mental health services for many years, but I’ve never before had an opportunity to stand up and give my opinion of how those services should be run.” These are the words of Orieta Kallushi, a service user speaking at the launch of Hamlet Trust’s Pathways to Policy programme in Tirana, Albania.

Over 60 stakeholders from a variety of backgrounds, from service users and carers to media, lawyers, mental health professionals, municipal representatives and other NGOs, joined together at an Open Forum to launch the programme in Albania on 22nd September 2005. They discussed how they could be involved in developing mental health policy – previously almost exclusively the reserve of traditional “experts” in Albania. With the support of the Open Society Mental Health Initiative and the UK Community Fund, Hamlet Trust is working in partnership with local NGO Alternativa, who are hosting the Local Policy Co-ordinator post, to be shared by Adri Bicaku and Alkent Birko, a service user.

The Open Forum had been preceded by a two-day policy skills workshop conducted by Jonathan Bureau of Hamlet Trust and Gabriela Tanasan, the Hamlet Local Policy Co-ordinator for the Pathways to Policy forum in Romania. Along with her colleague from the Romanian forum Beatrice Podasca, Gabriela shared invaluable experience of how the project has brought about real change in Romania.

One of the achievements of the week was for workshop participants to prioritise what they perceive to be the most critical mental health issues in Tirana. The following priorities were included on the agenda of the first meeting of the Tirana Local Policy Forum, held in mid-October 2005.

• Lobbying the government to ensure that more funds are directed towards mental health. The Albanian Ministry of Health currently does not allocate a separate, specific budget for mental health.
• Campaigning for the increased provision and quality of community services. Alternativa’s day centre is currently the only one of its kind in Tirana, providing activities and a place to meet for 30-40 service users every day.
• Providing more education and information about mental health, with the aim of (a) improving mental health of service users and (b) reducing stigma and discrimination in society towards people with mental health problems.
• Getting involved in making amendments to legislation, and helping to tackle the twin problems of corruption and lack of implementation.
• Lobbying and campaigning local government and business to ensure equal opportunities for housing, employment and education.

A first experience of mental health problems can be a frightening, disorientating experience. First episodes of psychosis are mostly experienced by those between the ages of 15 and 25 years, yet it is often the young who receive least support, with the stigma and feeling of isolation often particularly acute.

A new Hamlet Trust project in Estonia, funded by the Open Society Mental Health Initiative, will develop support for young people newly diagnosed with psychosis. The Tallinn Early Intervention in Psychosis Services (EIS), supported by Hamlet NMO the Estonian Psychosocial Rehabilitation Association and with a base at the Tallinn Mental Health Centre, set up a self-help group in 2004, the first of its kind for young people in Estonia. With the new funding, the group will be able to expand its activities, disseminate information on mental health to the general public and enable staff and service users to develop recovery plans and make social inclusion a reality.

Up to now a lack of early support has meant that up to 100 young people a year have been hospitalised in Tallinn. Project Manager Krista Onksion says “By getting to know their stories, working in a trust-based relationship and involving them in making choices about their future, young people can be empowered to tackle their problems that might otherwise result in hospitalisation. The earlier young people engage in their journey to recovery the more likely it is that they will resume ordinary activities, including education, occupation and relationships."

One group member said, “Since I started coming to this group I’ve found very much hope and belief in myself. I can do what I couldn’t do before and I’ve become a stronger person who can be happy just being myself!”

The influence of user-led NGOs in shaping mental health policy has received a huge boost following Hamlet's Rethinking Mental Health Policy conference in Slovenia in October 2004. Over 120 mental health stakeholders, including many service users, attended the conference along with representatives from 3 international policymaking bodies and 28 national and international NGOs. Many took the opportunity to lobby the World Health Organisation (WHO) to recognise the voice of users as an integral element in the shaping of mental health policy. Delegates sent special postcards featuring the conference logo (right) to senior figures in the mental health departments of WHO in Denmark and Switzerland. This raised awareness of the views and grass-roots experiences of people with mental health problems, and the proactive sharing of life stories and experiences has already had a positive impact.

One of the recipients of those postcards was the Acting Regional Advisor for Mental Health Dr Matt Muijen. Dr Muijen subsequently invited Hamlet Trust to meet with health ministers and other high-level decision-makers and NGOs from throughout Europe in January 2005 in Helsinki, Finland, at the WHO European Ministerial Conference on Mental Health. At the Conference, ministers endorsed a mental health declaration and an action plan for Europe. These are expected to drive policy on mental health in the WHO European Region for at least the next five years.

Jane Shears, Hamlet’s representative at the Helsinki meeting, said, “Everyone present recognised it was invaluable to have a forum such as this for useful dialogue between the NGOs and the WHO. This mechanism ensures that the views of service users are represented at the highest levels of policy-making”.

*NEW Digital video of event now online -

Guests at the anniversary event learned more about the work of Hamlet Trust, while each took home a candle made by members of the candle workshop at Alternativa, a Hamlet Network Member Organisation (NMO) in Albania. One lucky guest even snapped up a fine hand-woven rug made at the carpet workshop run by another Hamlet NMO, the Mental Health Foundation Armenia.

A highly enjoyable evening was rounded off with the awarding of raffle prizes - which promptly turned into an auction! Special thanks go to the donors of prizes: Key Travel for providing two tickets to a European capital, and Mrs Jacqueline Land and our very own Igor Spreizer - Hamlet Trust Regional Associate and Co-editor of Hamlet Snapshots - for providing two exquisite works of art made by themselves. Thanks also to Jeff Vickers, for donating his photography skills and subsidising display boards for the evening.

Here’s to the next 15 years of building better lives!