Grow, a community-based mental health support organisation, is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, writes Sylvia Thompson
"My wife and I both had psychiatric labels which were expected to stay with us for the rest of our lives. But, we've outgrown them and don't suffer from mental illness anymore."
This frank and honest comment from Mike Watts, a long-term member of Grow, the community-based mental health support organisation, encapsulates the core value of an organisation which has helped thousands of people in Ireland.
Celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, the organisation began in Australia in 1957 when a group of former patients of psychiatric hospitals started going to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Soon, the group began to meet on their own to work more directly on their problems of rehabilitation after mental breakdown.
Now, 50 years later, Grow is an international organisation with networks throughout Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the US, Mauritius, England and Ireland.
The organisation was brought to Ireland in 1969 by Fr Sean O'Hanlon, an Irish missionary priest in Papua New Guinea. Now, there is a network of 145 groups and about 130 Grow meetings in every corner of Ireland every week.
"Research has shown that Grow makes a huge difference to people's lives especially to those who have suffered from psychosis or who have been institutionalised," says Mike Watts.
More specifically, Watts says that Grow helps people find work, build their social networks, make friends and reduce their reliance on hospitals. "We have published two books, Soul Survivors Volume One(1996) and Soul Survivors Volume Two(2003), which tell people's stories of recovery. Listening to people's stories is a key to recovery," says Watts.
Members of Grow follow a programme of 12 steps to recovery and personal growth. These steps encourage members to accept themselves, to resolve to get well, to take care and control of their bodies, to train their wills, to govern their feelings, to take a responsible and caring place in society and to grow daily closer to maturity. The Grow programme also teaches members that isolation from others and focusing on the self can be a cause of decline in mental health.
"The recovery process is the key and it is radically different from the medical model which tends to give people with serious mental illness a life sentence," says Watts.
"Professionals don't fully understand the horrors of experiencing mental illness, the huge side effects of medication and the stigma, especially for young people."
Watts believes that organisations such as Grow, Schizophrenia Ireland and the Irish Advocacy Network have a huge role to play in educating professionals.
"We need to say what has or hasn't been helpful. Professionals have to get to know the people they are working with and find out what their talents are. More and more people are beginning to accept other kinds of help apart from medication," he says.
"In Grow, we don't believe that serious illness is life long. Personally, I'd love to change the language from care plans to recovery maps." Watts also contends that ordinary relationships are the key for people to maintain their mental health.
"Prof Julian Rappaport from the University of Illinois has said that the success or failure [of mental health programmes] depends less on the mental health professional's ability to create supportive environments or to teach specific skills and more on their ability to find and encourage naturally occurring niches and mutual relationships that people can depend on."
He commends such mental health projects as the Blue Room in Limerick where young people meet through their interest in music and community arts initiatives in Co Kilkenny.
"I was terrified of people but I found great support in a creative writing group, a hill walking group, and learning to play the tin whistle helped me to be at home with other people," says Watts.
Speaking about initiatives within Grow in Ireland, Watts enthuses about recently formed groups in the Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum, Dublin and in Arbour Hill prison. "The members in these groups are so motivated and have built up supportive communities."
Social worker Fergal Butler, from the Central Mental Hospital, and Nick Clarke, a welfare officer from Arbour Hill prison, will speak about Grow at the Grow Golden Jubilee conference in Donegal tomorrow.
"This year, we are also working to make Grow more young people friendly. We have had youth groups and a schools programme in the midwest where young people tell their stories of breakdown and recovery but there are huge opportunities to work with children and find ways that young people can talk confidently [about their problems] without being labelled."
Peer advocacy as a means to promote mental health is also a very valuable initiative, according to Watts.
Another longer term aim of Grow in Ireland is the establishment of residential programmes.
"Such programmes run by Grow in Australia and the United States have been found to work significantly better than state run programmes," says Watts.
The model is one of team work in which people begin at stage one in which they are part of the team with no responsibility and work up to stage four in which they are in employment or third-level education while still on the residential programme.
In a brief discussion about the stigma of mental illness, Watts concludes with an interesting remark. "Con Keogh, the co-founder of Grow in Australia, used to say 'everyone's heard of the down and outs but what about the up and outs - the ones who can't cope but have the resources to go on being unpleasant and wrecking lives and nobody can do anything about it'."
Grow's golden jubilee conference, 50 years a Growing - a story of recovery, personal growth and community mental health, is on tomorrow in the Clanree Hotel, Letterkenny, Co Donegal. Tel: 074-9161628 for more details. See also www.grow.ie e-mail info@grow.ie or tel: 1890-474474.