Mental health drive to help gay people

Published Date: 31 August 2009

A NEW mental health programme for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people will aim to help tackle high levels of depression, anxiety, self-harm, suicide and attempted suicide.

The LGBT Centre for Health and Wellbeing in Edinburgh's Howe Street says prejudice and discrimination contribute to a rate of mental ill-health among the LGBT community three or four times that of the mainstream population.

Its autumn Mind Matters programme will include sessions on issues such as self-harm, support for carers, domestic abuse, safe alcohol use and parenting.

All the events are free of charge. For further information, contact the centre on 0131 523 1100, visit www.lgbthealth.org.uk or e-mail admin@lgbthealth.ord.uk

The full article contains 124 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.

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• Last Updated: 31 August 2009 9:42 AM
• Source: Edinburgh Evening News
• Location: Edinburgh

Working with Self-harm – a One Day Workshop (Swansea)

Date:- Thursday 25th June 2009


Venue:- Maritime Museum, Oystermouth Road,
Swansea, SA1 3RD

This one-day workshop explores self-harm and is suitable for workers whose clients may be exhibiting self-harming behaviours. Participants will explore this complex subject that is often mistakenly seen as attempted suicide.

This workshop starts from the basic principles of understanding the issues leading to and surrounding destructive and harmful behaviours, the function of the behaviour(s) and appropriate responses. Self-harm is a relevant issue for all of those working with children and young people and is of grave concern.

The aims of this workshop are: To increase awareness and understanding of the reasons why young people may use destructive and harmful behaviours. To develop competence and identify relevant skills to enable professionals to respond confidently when presented with and in identifying self-harming behaviours.

To book contact:

Glyn Jones,
Network Manager,
Mid and West Wales CAMHS Commissioning Network

glyn.jones@wales.nhs.uk

Medical Treatment For Self Harm

There may be sometimes when the individual requires medical treatment for their self harm. If this is the case the individual should expect to be treated sensitively and with the same level of care and attention as any other patient. (There are a set of guidelines produced for NHS staff to advise them how they should treat people who self harm.)

Unfortunately this is not always the case, and it will help if you are prepared and able to advocate for the person who has harmed themselves. Be aware that going to a GP or A & E for treatment of self harm is most likely going to be a very difficult experience for someone who self harms as this is a very public arena for a very private act.

Try to ensure the individual is given a private area to speak to the health care professional and that they are given a choice in their treatment - even if their choice is one you disagree with.
Any individual who has self harmed has the right to pain relief and thorough treatment for their harm, and should not be exposed to judgment or criticism by the healthcare professional.
If the person is bleeding heavily, has taken an overdose or ingested a substance, take the person to A & E as this could be life threatening. We are not healthcare professionals and cannot give advice on first aid.

A majority of cases of self harm are not serious enough to warrant medical intervention so individuals may never come into contact with healthcare services for their self harm. In these cases it is often beneficial for the individual to manage their own first aid by dressing their wounds and keeping them clean and dry.

[taken from Harmless]

Publication/Enquiry 2006

National Conference debates the findings of Truth Hurts, the 96 page (pdf)report of the National Inquiry into Self-harm among Young People

Over 100 senior managers and policy makers came together at the British Library to hear from a range of speakers on the implications of the findings of the National Inquiry, and to debate how to improve the experience of young people who self harm, their families and friends.

Speakers included a young person with personal experience of self-harm, who movingly described her ongoing struggle to find alternative ways of coping, and the critical difference that had been made in her life by finding a GP able to work with her to tackle the need to self-harm. A range of professionals also spoke from their perspective: the medical advisor for the RCN discussed the challenges of “safe” self harm, a human right lawyer laid out the complex legal framework within which treatment decisions need to be made, and the conference heard from counselling services in schools and universities about what interventions appear to be successful. The governor of Styal prison discussed the high rates of self harm among women prisoners and the need to support staff to deal with highly distressing situations, and the leader of an in-patient psychiatric unit described the unit’s move from an approach based on stopping self harm to one that sought to allow patients a sense of control and responsibility over the self-harming behaviour.

Andrew McCulloch, Chief Executive of the Mental Health Foundation, urged all professionals to re-engage with their core skills of empathy and a non-judgemental approach to offering support to young people who self-harm. He outlined the Mental Health Foundation’s intention to develop training for front-line professionals.

Publication

All of the information here is based on the findings of the National Inquiry into Self-harm among Young People. The Inquiry was carried out by two charities, The Mental Health Foundation and The Camelot Foundation. The Inquiry panel heard evidence from many hundreds of people including young people who self-harm, or have self-harmed in the past, and those who work with or care about them.

This 32 page booklet is based on what they said. You will see the words of young people who have self-harmed throughout this booklet, in the form of quotes.

For more information about the Inquiry and its findings, visit Young People & Self Harm, Nationa Inquiry and the Appendix at the back of this booklet.

A & E

It is estimated that around 170,000 people each year deliberately harm themselves. Of these, around 80,000 of those who attend the casualty department never receive a phychological assessment or follow-up. This is despite the fact that the risk of committing suicide after self-harming is 100 times greater than the average risk in the rest of the population.

You'd think that self harmers would be 'in safe hands' at hostpial, but there is growing concern and evidence (and I can back this up with personal experience) that self harmers sometimes receive a poorer standard of NHS care than other patients that were deemed to have sustained their injuries by accident. Self harmers are classified with drug addicts, drunks, glue sniffers and other groups who are in the same vicious cycle of tranquilizing their anxiety by inflicting harm and pain to themselves.

There is a deep seated feeling among some health care staff that self harmers of all kinds, clog the system, and consume resources that should be allocated to the 'deserving'. Charactistically, this goes with a general lack of patience when dealing with self harmers, right alongside the sarcastic or cutting remarks, that demean the self harmer, and sap their already low self esteem. Indeed, Professor Paul Lelliott, the director of the Royal College of Psychiatrists Research Unit, is reported as saying; "There are still examples of people having wounds stitched without anaesthetic, the idea being 'well you cut yourself without anaesthetic, so why should we use it?'"How barbaric is that??

This is not to say this sort of thing happens in all hospitals, and is not representative of the feelings of all staff. Many casualty staff are highly sympathetic and understand there is an underlying cause to the actions of a self harmer, which may require the efforts of other fields of medicine to resolve.

[taken from: Distant Healer.Co.UK]

Media

Lesbians more likely to self-harm

Britain’s lesbian and bisexual women are significantly more likely to self-harm and to abuse drink and drugs than the wider female population, a major new study has revealed.
Matt Aston

18 June 2008

The research, conducted by De Montfort University and Sigma Research, also found that its 6,000 lesbian and bisexual respondents faced exclusion from routine testing for cervical cancer.

The study suggests that the National Health Service is failing to identify specific healthcare needs among Britain’s 1.8 million lesbians, with half reporting a recent negative experience.

The NHS is also failing to address specific mental health needs that many women still experience as a result of discrimination.

In February, Health Secretary Alan Johnson spoke about eradicating just this kind of health inequality, saying that “genuine equality will be achieved not by providing the same service for everyone but by delivering the same outcome for everyone, recognising the diverse needs of different communities and individuals and responding appropriately to those needs.

”The complete version of this story appears in the new copy of the Pink Paper, available from 26 June.

Source: news.PinkPaper.com