Dear Jacqui, John and David
Thanks for your responses, which have given us considerable food for thought.
- The publication will be free, and will be edited collectively. It will be on a
fairly modest scale – in line with other outputs from mhhe. Those involved in
the editing – where unwaged – will be paid for that work. None will be in
established academic posts.
- We too agree that £15 isn’t much, and that a ‘voucher’ would be
inappropriate if offered as a 'payment' to contributors – which unfortunately,
as a small project with a very limited budget, we are unable to provide. The
book tokens were not intended – though we see now may well be perceived to
be –a payment. We gave a lot of careful thought to the wording for this call,
though (with hindsight) clearly not enough.
- Our call was targeted at educators and trainers (whether academics or
service user and carer educators) and aims to highlight connections between
lived experience and learning/teaching. We do recognise that some
contributors may be paid little - and some, perhaps, nothing - for their wider
involvement in training (a very important issue). We believe that all who
choose to contribute will potentially have something to gain, though clearly
not financially, from contributing to a publication of this kind. Though the
wider issue is, as John suggests, beyond the scope of mhhe, we are – through
our work with the Developers of User and Carer Involvement in Education
Network – attempting to do something to address it. See:
www.mhhe.heacademy/ducieguidelines and www.mhhe.heacademy.lfe
- We agree that learning and teaching plays an important part in socially
constructing ‘mental health’, and that what has and is being constructed by
those in established disciplines can be problematic. There is of course a
danger that ‘networking and the sharing of approaches across disciplines’ can
reinforce that. On the other hand, it has been our experience – and that of
our partners (eg www.ceimh.bham.ac.uk) - that through opening one
discipline to scrutiny by another, and all disciplines to the critique of those
with experience of ‘mental health’ problems, oppressive approaches to learning
and teaching about mental health can begin to be challenged. The Mental
Health in Higher Education project will end next summer – leaving (we hope)
some things that can be built upon, as well as lots of space for other
approaches to be tried.
By circulating this call to the community psychology jiscmail list, as well as
through the Mental Health in Higher Education network, we were keen to tap
in to experience that we might not otherwise have reached. It is clear from
offline postings that there have been gains in that. We are grateful too for
the comments on the call as a whole, and the wider work we have been
engaged with in the project – and will be giving your comments further
thought. Do please call (01524 592836) if you have time to discuss any of
this further. We would welcome that.
Best wishes,
Jill
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