Category Archives: Social Change

Butterfly Diaries Launched: Order Online

October 20, 2013 11:00 pm ⋅ admin

The Butterfly Diaries Volume 1 was launched on the 13th of October at Fiesta in the Park – a free book of four true stories of recovery from the experience of being suicidal.

Engage Aotearoa set up a tent and invited people to take a book, decorate a butterfly with a coping tip and leave it on the tent to share with others. Sixty free books were handed out on the day and The Butterfly Diaries tent finished up covered in colourful butterflies and heaps of helpful tips people wanted to share.

Online orders flew in thick and fast since the release was first announced and another 2 00 books were posted out to across the country in the days following the launch. Books have been sent to Kaitaia, Kohukohu, Kerikeri, Whangarei, all across Auckland, Hamilton, Raglan, Thames, Tauranga, Timaru, Wellington, Lower Hutt, Christchurch, Dunedin, Invercargill and a range of towns the team had never heard of before. Orders even came in from as far afield as Glasgow and The Netherlands in the first few days. There are now only 20 copies of the first print run left and the team at Engage Aotearoa are in the process of ordering more.

As soon as the books flew out into the world, the first comments started flying in…

“I’ve read my copy of the Butterfly Diaries and think it’s excellent – you must be really pleased with the end result, as I imagine the participants are. I’d be keen to get a box of them so we can take them with us when we present around the country.”

Order Online

The Butterfly Diaries is free for individuals in the community. A small donation is requested to cover the cost of postage and handling ($2.50 p/bk). If you cannot donate, simply email Engage Aotearoa with your address and you’ll be sent a copy anyway.

Organisations can order copies online by making a donation to cover the cost of printing and posting the copies ordered ($5 p/bk). This allows Engage Aotearoa to keep free copies available for individuals in the community who may not use services.

Share the poster with the people you know and help make recovery stories easy for Kiwis to find.

Posted in: Engage Updates, Families/Whanau, Men, News, Parents and Parenting, Personal Development Tools, Recovery Stories, Service-User Movement, Social Change, Suicide Prevention/Support, Women, Young People and Youth Issues ⋅ Tagged: Book Launch, Fiesta in The Park, Free Book, Suicide Recovery Stories, The Butterfly Diaries Volume 1

Highlights from the IIMHL Update

October 20, 2013 10:21 pm ⋅ admin

Engage Aotearoa loves getting updates from the International Initiative for Mental Health Leadership – it’s always full of really interesting and relevant links. Here are a few highlights from the September update.

A Manager’s Guide to Suicide Postvention in the Workplace: 10 action steps for dealing with the aftermath of suicide

(2013). American Association of Suicidology (AAS) and the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention (Action Alliance), Crisis Care Network (CCN), and the Carson J Spencer Foundation.

Guidebook

The guide provides clear steps for postvention, giving leadership a sense of how to immediately respond to the traumatic event, have a plan in the short-term for recovery, and consider long-term strategies for helping employees cope down the line.

Addressing the Intimacy Interests of People with Mental Health Conditions: Acknowledging Consumer Desires, Provider Discomforts and System Denial

The Temple University Collaborative announces the availability of a new monograph focusing upon the intimacy concerns of individuals with mental health conditions. Acknowledging that sexual intimacy is a lifelong priority for all men and women, the monograph reviews current mental health research on the topic, the issues raised by men and women with mental health conditions with regard to the barriers they face in developing satisfactory intimate lives, and the uneasiness of most community mental health practitioners in discussing intimacy and sexuality with the people they serve. The monograph, which offers initial recommendations for the mental health community, seeks to initiate a national dialogue on these issues. You can view this document on the website, here:

http://tucollaborative.org/pdfs/Toolkits_Monographs_Guidebooks/relationships_family_friends_intimacy/intimacy.pdf

Podcast: Michael Kendrick PhD

Michael Kendrick is an international expert on personalised funding approaches for people living with mental illness. Michael has worked in the fields of mental health, disability and aged care for nearly 30 years. He has advised governments and community organisations in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Central America.

In this memorial lecture he talks about “a life lived well”.

http://www.mifellowship.org/news/15th-bruce-woodcock-memorial-lecture-podcast

2014 Leadership Exchange

The 2014 Leadership Exchange will be in England from 9-13 June. Registration is now open via www.iimhl.com and a list of the available themes for the two day matches on the 9th and 10th of June is available for IIMHL members to select from. The venue is the United Events – Old Trafford, Manchester for the two day combined meeting on the 12^th and 13^th June in Manchester. A draft agenda will be available soon. Further information on the IIDL host sites and agenda will also be available in due course

Join IIMHL / IIDL

Any leader in mental health, addiction and disability services can join IIMHL or IIDL free by using this link: http://www1.iimhl.com/Join.asp

Posted in: Online Resources, People with Disabilities, Professional Development, Service-User Movement, Social Change ⋅ Tagged: 10 action steps for dealing with the aftermath of suicide, 2014 Leadership Exchange, Guide to Suicide Postvention, IIMHL Update, International Initiative for Mental Health Leadership, Intimacy Sexual Interests of People with Mental Health Conditions, Join, Michael Kendrick Podcast, Personalised Funding

Call for Evidence to Improve Physical Health of People Living with Mental-Health Problems

October 5, 2013 11:16 pm ⋅ admin

Take action for health equity: Working together to improve the physical health of people with a severe mental illness and/or addiction

Te Pou is working with Platform and its members on a collaborative project which aims to take action to improve the relatively poor physical health of people who have been diagnosed with a severe mental-health problem, including major depressive disorder, bi-polar disorder, schizophrenia and/or addiction. Te Pou and Platform want to hear from organisations or individuals that have conducted evaluations or gathered evidence in the course of their work that will help to build a picture of what works to improve the physical health of people with mental-health problems.

To find out more about this project click here.

Posted in: Community Participation, News, Physical Health, Research, Social Change ⋅ Tagged: Call for Evidence, Platform, Take action for health equity: Working together to improve the physical health of people with a severe mental illness and/or addiction, Te Pou

The Butterfly Diaries Volume 1: Launch & Order Details

September 28, 2013 1:54 am ⋅ admin

The Butterfly Diaries Volume 1 is a FREE book of inspiring stories and personal tips from four people who have recovered from the experience of being suicidal.

Launch Details:

NOTE: Event Moved to Sunday 13th of October due to rain forecast for Saturday the 12th.

Engage Aotearoa will be launching The Butterfly Diaries Volume 1 at Fiesta in the Park on the 13th of October for Mental Health Awareness Week. Come along to the free public concert and pop into The Butterfly Diaries Tent – a quiet corner covered in white paper butterflies where you can stop by to decorate a butterfly with a survival tip of your own, pick up a copy of the book, relax with a copy in the reading corner or listen to the authors and editors read from the book.

Where: Fiesta in the Park, Western Park, Ponsonby, Auckland
When: From midday Sunday 13 October 2012
Reading Times:
12:30 – 1:00 pm Michelle Bolton reads from Breathe and Breathe and Breathe by Phoebe Wright
1:30 – 2:00 pm Owen Bullock reads from Enough Angels
2:30 – 3:00 pm Miriam Larsen-Barr reads from Welcome to Today by Henrietta Bollinger
3:30 – 4:00 pm Raewyn Alexander reads from Emerging from the Past, Transformed

The Butterfly Diaries, Volume 1
Four true stories of transformation told by four New Zealand writers.

Stories by Raewyn Alexander, Henrietta Bollinger, Owen Bullock and Phoebe Wright.
Foreword by Mike King
Edited by Miriam Larsen-Barr and Michelle Bolton

In Aotearoa, New Zealand, 1 in 6 people have suicidal thoughts each year. It is a normal human response to feel hopeless sometimes. It takes a great deal of distress tolerance, brute determination, skill development, support and understanding to survive the urge to act on those thoughts and feelings when they arise. But hardly anyone ever talks about suicidal thoughts and feelings, making it even harder for people to find out how to get through. The Butterfly Diaries gives voice to the stories of those who have been there and made it out alive. Sean, Jane, Mary and Brad have all been suicidal, survived their own suicide attempts and found their way to a place where they are glad to be living their lives. In The Butterfly Diaries they share how they strengthened their wings and learned to fly.

The first edition of The Butterfly Diaries Volume 1 will be placed in high-schools and GP waiting rooms across the NZ, to make recovery stories easy to find. Suicide rates peak among youth and most people who are suicidal visit a GP in the months leading up to making an attempt, even if they do not talk about how they are really feeling.

How to Order Copies

You can nominate a service or person to receive a copy of The Butterfly Diaries or order a copy for yourself by making a donation on the Engage Aotearoa website to cover the cost of posting your book. Just fill in your details and give the delivery address in the space provided. The minimum donation is set at NZ$2.50 (the cost of NZ postage and handling). A donation of $5 will get a copy posted for you and cover the costs of printing a copy for someone else.

Click here to order a copy of The Butterfly Diaries

Contact Engage Aotearoa for more information

Want to help prevent suicide in NZ?

You can help get more copies of The Butterfly Diaries out there for people to read. Sponsor a print run by making a donation on the Engage Aotearoa website. Every donation over $5 is tax deductible. A $20 donation pays for eight more books. A $500 donation prints enough books for a small school.

Posted in: Asian Communities, Community Participation, Engage Updates, Entertainment and Creativity, Families/Whanau, Maori Communities, Men, News, Older People and Aging, Parents and Parenting, People with Disabilities, Personal Development Tools, Recovery Stories, Service-User Movement, Social Change, Suicide Prevention/Support, Women, Young People and Youth Issues ⋅ Tagged: Fiesta in The Park, Free Book, Mental Health Awareness Week 2013, Order, Recovering from Suicidality, Sponsor, Suicide, The Butterfly Diaries, Western Park

The Victory Fashion Parade | Whangarei | 28 Sep 2013

September 28, 2013 12:05 am ⋅ admin

When Engage Aotearoa visited Whangarei with Mike King and Key to Life for the Community Korero earlier this year, the team met a wonderful woman named Vicky Flavell who wanted to put her passion for fashion design behind a good cause.

The Victory Fashion Parade brings together designers from the Far North for a night of style, with all proceeds going towards Engage Aotearoa’s project to get printed copies of The Community Resources Directory and The Butterfly Diaries out into communities across the country. Making help easy to find when people are struggling is an important part of preventing suicide in NZ. Now, the people of Whangarei can help make that happen just by enjoying a good night out with their friends.

6 pm, Saturday 28 September 2013
Toll Stadium, Whangarei
Tickets $40
Contact no. 021 144 6080

Posted in: Community Participation, Engage Updates, Entertainment and Creativity, Families/Whanau, Men, News, Parents and Parenting, Service-User Movement, Social Change, Suicide Prevention/Support, Women, Young People and Youth Issues ⋅ Tagged: By Design, Charlotte Davidson, CMHRT, Community Resources Directory, Engage Aotearoa, Mercy, Neishamaree, Samantha Wakelin Design, Simon Richards, Steampunk Whangarei, Tailor Made Style, The Victory Fashion Parade, Toll Stadium, Whangarei

International Petition Demands “Let us see Drug Data! Drug hazards are not trade secrets”

August 31, 2013 11:30 am ⋅ admin

A petition has been making its way around the internet urging drug companies to stop lawsuits blocking public access to drug trial data. The petition names physical health medications, but this issue is also highly relevant to the availability of drug trial data about psychiatric medications.

The petitioner, David Healy of Cardiff, Wales writes:

Drug companies maximize the sales of new drugs by hyping their benefits while downplaying significant risks. In 2010 the European Medicines Agency began releasing patient-level data from the clinical trials used to approve new medicines in Europe – a development hailed by American and European researchers and researchers around the world as a major step towards drug safety.

This process has been shut down by a lawsuit taken by two American corporations – AbbVie, makers of Humira, the number one selling medication in the world with projected sales of $10 billion in 2013; and InterMune, whose pulmonary-fibrosis drug Esbriet has recently been approved in Europe at a cost of over $40,000 per year.

AbbVie and InterMune have filed suit to deny access to the data from their trials on the benefits and harms of these drugs, claiming these vital facts are “trade secrets” whose release would harm their profits. Their action has led to the shutdown of the entire public-access program, leaving millions of patients worldwide, and their doctors, in the dark.

We call on AbbVie and InterMune to drop their European Union lawsuit and release all patient level data on Humira, Esbriet and their other products. Vital data on drug safety should never be hidden as a “trade secret.” By copying this petition to President Barack Obama and members of his Cabinet we call on them to ensure that meaningful public access to clinical trial data becomes the policy of the FDA and is written into any international trade agreements governing the sale of prescription drugs and devices.

Copies to:
President Barack Obama;
Margaret Hamburg, M.D., Commissioner, Food & Drug Administration;
Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, United Nations;
World Health Organization Director Dr Margaret Chan.

Click here to sign the petition.

Posted in: Human Rights and Legal Issues, News, Politics and Policy, Psychiatric Medication, Service-User Movement, Social Change ⋅ Tagged: AbbVie, David Healy, European Medicines Agency, FDA, InterMune, Petition, Richard Gonzalez of AbbVie and Daniel Welch of InterMune: Drop your legal action blocking access to EMA clinical trial data

Mike King Korero Heads to Taranaki Region in September

August 11, 2013 9:25 pm ⋅ admin

Mike King and Tai Tupou are hitting the road again in September to encourage schools and communities to make it cool to korero about the tough stuff, so we all make it through.

10 September, 1 pm, Cool to Korero, Francis Douglas College, New Plymouth
10 September, 7:30 pm, Community Korero, War Memorial Hall, Stratford
11 September, 7:30 pm, Community Korero, Waves Building, New Plymouth
11 September, 12:30 am, Cool to Korero for Hawera High and Patea Area School, The Hub, Hawera
12 September, 11:30 am, Combined Community Cool to Korero, Opunake College, Opunake

While the team at Key to Life are getting ready to hit the road, the team at Engage Aotearoa will be adding recovery resources from each of these towns to The Community Resources Directory, so they can be delivered to those who need them when the team hits the ground in each of their locations across Taranaki. If you know of any services in the Taranaki region you think others would find useful, email them in.

Posted in: Community Participation, Engage Updates, Families/Whanau, Maori Communities, Men, Older People and Aging, Parents and Parenting, Pasifika Communities, People with Disabilities, Personal Development Tools, Politics and Policy, Professional Development, Rainbow / LGBTQI+ Community, Recovery Stories, Service-User Movement, Social Change, Suicide Prevention/Support, Women, Young People and Youth Issues ⋅ Tagged: Community Korero, Cool to Korero, Engage Aotearoa, Key to Life Charitable Trust, Mike King, Presentations, Suicide Prevention, Tai Tupou, Talks

Study on Social Inclusion and People Living with Schizophrenia

August 9, 2013 4:13 pm ⋅ admin

PatientView is seeking respondents for a new study aimed at people living with schizophrenia and their carers.

The study aims to identify some of the challenges faced by people who are affected by schizophrenia- particularly the challenge of being socially included in society. The intention is to identify how healthcare policy can improve and present this information to policy makers.

If you are interested in talking part, follow these links: 6Patients Carers and families

This survey will close on Monday 19 August

Posted in: Community Participation, Families/Whanau, Parents and Parenting, Research, Service-User Movement, Social Change ⋅ Tagged: NSCSS, PatientView, Research Participation, Study on Social Inclusion and People Living with Schizophrenia, Study Volunteers

« Previous 1 … 3 4 5 6 7 … 16 Next »

Category Archives: Social Change

Order Online

Join IIMHL / IIDL

How to Order Copies

Want to help prevent suicide in NZ?

Changing Minds Panel Discussion

Post Navigation

A Note to Visitors