Deaf News: Deaf mental health discussed during Mental Wealth Festival

As Mental Health Awareness Week is commemorated, and the Mental Wealth Festival got underway, deaf people and organisations gathered in Central London to discuss mental health in the deaf community.

Chaired by City Lit’s Mark Hopkinson, the panel included James Watson-O’Neil (SignHealth), Julie Ratcliffe (Royal Association for Deaf people), Paul Redfern (The British Society for Mental Health and Deafness), Victoria Nelson (Deaf4Deaf), Herbert Klein (Deaf advisor in mental health) and Lenka Novakova (NHS Deaf Advisor).

Conversations began on the topic of access to mental health for deaf people. Lenka, who is a deaf advisor for South West London St. George’s Mental Health Trust, said the problem lies with a small community, saying that “the message is not getting out there”.

“For the hearing community, there are lots of publications, lots of media coverage, lots of talk about these things. It is in the newspapers, but English is a huge barrier for us.

“For deaf people, their first language is BSL, which means that when they see a piece of English, they don’t always understand what it is saying or telling them,” she said.

Lenka also used an arm analogy to describe the levels of mental health support. The shoulder was described as being the foundation (such as parents and early intervention). At the muscle and the elbow is the flexibility, such as counselling and advice. The NHS was described as being the fingertips – “the last grasp before you drown”.

Lenka described the GP as primary care, adding that “you [deaf people] often fail there”.

Meanwhile, James said that while he agreed with other panellists that more research is needed, he thinks it’s important “to balance the things we want with feeling good about things we have”.

He stressed that this doesn’t mean the community should be appreciative of the current support and not ask for more, but that the UK has a responsibility to improve it “even further and to build on that”.

Elsewhere, Victoria responded by saying that “we need to look at creating more tools”, talking about the lack of a BSL translation for the recent Every Mind Matters campaign.

“We need to make sure that things are accessible,” she said. “We need to check to make sure that deaf people can access things.”

The next question focussed on a clear pathway, with Herbert replying that “deaf people find it very hard to understand how this [the NHS system] works”. Victoria added that one of the reasons why Deaf4Deaf was set up was to allow deaf people to go to the GP, with people “giving up registering at GPs because it was too difficult”.

James joined the discussion by mentioning SignHealth’s research that 70% of deaf people want to see their GP but won’t go due to them thinking an interpreter available as a result of previous bad experiences. He added that “we have to support people to get to their GP”.

Paul responded to the question by saying: “A lot of people don’t know about this idea of swinging mental health.

“So for me, what is important is we need to think about how we improve deaf people’s understanding of their own mental health and what it means to them.”

He also added that deaf people need to be educated about their rights.

When asked by Mark about the current state of services, the panellists raised a variety of concerns. James highlighted “the real postcode lottery around funding”, adding that “some parts of the country will fund our services and some parts of the country won’t” and saying this is “not acceptable”.

He also raised the issue that a lot of well-known deaf people have died by suicide, saying that those cases remind us of how serious the situation is. He said the consequences are “as serious as they can possibly be”, calling it a “crisis”.

Meanwhile, Paul mentioned the decline in deaf clubs in his response, Lenka talked about the lack of dialogue between deaf children with hearing parents, and Victoria highlighted the decreasing number of deaf schools, saying that she thinks it is also a factor in deaf people’s mental health.

In the final panel question around health services working together, James raised the point that Clinical Commissioning Groups are turning into a smaller number of Integrated Care Organisations (ICOs), meaning that “there are fewer people that we have to try and influence”.

Julie added that we need to have a targeted approach: “We can support one another to gather some statistics, get some consultation, have evidence of need, and actually work together and achieve it in one location, then you have got a benchmark from which to then move along and do it in another location.

“I think that is going to be the way to move forward,” she said.

The event concluded with audience contributions, touching on increasing the number of deaf mental health professionals and making change from the top.

In response to a question from the floor, James said: ”We are working together in a way that maybe is not as visible.”

“We need to work harder to show the community that we are working together more.”

On the topic of working at the top, Julie said that a lot of the time the mental health sector is “based on evidence of need”, adding that “only by providing services from the ground and listening to deaf people and gathering that information, [do] you then have the evidence to show the people at the top – to say this is why we need what we need. They might say that is great but prove it.

“So, it is about working from the top, and the bottom, and doing it together.”

She also went on to add to James’ response to discussions around making organisations’ collaborative work more visible.

“I agree with James that we need to be more open and transparent about what we are doing together,” she said, “but I think that we exactly need to put some actions on paper, and work together, so that we can then share that with the deaf community.”

Mark agreed, and rounded up the discussion by saying that “we all should work together”.

The Mental Wealth Festival ran until 12 October, with events taking place in several venues across London.

More information can be found on City Lit’s website.

By Liam O’Dell. Liam is a mildly deaf freelance journalist and blogger from Bedfordshire. He wears bilateral hearing aids and can be found talking about disability, theatre, politics and more on Twitter and on his website.