We’re getting excited for our AGM and Member’s Event on Saturday 5 July at Friends Meeting House, Euston Road (and online). In this post we are introducing you to our amazing speakers, each of whom will bring something valuable to our discussions on the day.
Alison Branitsky: What happens when an alternative becomes an addition? Hearing Voices Groups in the NHS
HVG ideology is antithetical to the ideology of clinical services, but HVGs are still run in the NHS. This raises questions about if and how these groups can and should be run in clinical services. This talk will discuss the first clinical trial of an online HVG run in an NHS context and talk about the practical and ideological challenges and opportunities that occurred.
Alison is a lived experience researcher at the University of Manchester and Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust. Her research focuses on celebrating survivor-led alternatives to traditional interventions for voice hearing and other unshared experiences.
Neil Caton: Raising our consciousness: healing ourselves by understanding our experiences of oppression
Neil has facilitated Hearing Voices Groups for over ten years in different areas of North West England and online. He has his own experiences of unusual beliefs/paranoia and has used various psychiatric services over the years. He works as a service user researcher at the Spectrum Centre at Lancaster University. He is a longstanding member of CHARM and ISPS UK, where he campaigns for more compassionate and rights-based responses to mental health difficulties. He also worked for 20 years in social care for people with learning difficulties.
Safia Aslam: Finding The Muslim Voice
The Muslim Voice is a platform dedicated to promoting mental health and wellbeing within the Muslim community. It was founded in 2024 by Muhammad Khan and Safia Aslam. They run online peer support groups where brothers and sisters can have discussions, in separate meetings. They welcome people who have challenges such as hearing voices and/or psychosis.
Safia has been an independent, stubborn and resilient lady. The good times have been a blessing and have taught her to appreciate life’s tough times and they don’t last! Safia is a great animal carer. She’s had several pets in her life and now has a pony that pushes her to be the best she can be. God willing she will continue to support others travelling on her path.
Fiona Malpass: ‘Stone by stone, and brick by brick’: building an understanding of safety and peer support spaces from young people’s perspectives
Voice Collective specialises in supporting children and young people under the age of 26 who hear voices, or have related sensory experiences or unshared beliefs that can become overwhelming or distressing. This talk will explore some of the joys as well as some of the challenges of creating spaces where young people feel safe to express themselves, talk about potentially taboo topics, and feel heard and held. The nuances of supporting people at different points in their life, and ways of providing group spaces that feel accessible and helpful to children and young people are also explored.
Fiona works at Mind in Camden as the Project Development and Innovation Lead, working on the Hearing Voices Projects supporting young people, people detained in prisons, forensic settings and immigration removal centres, as well as the London Hearing Voices Network (LHVN). They have studied psychology and philosophy, work with the National Suicide Prevention Alliance as an Influencer, in addition to working as a freelance speaker and trainer. They approach a lot of their work from a lived experience perspective – Fiona has personal experience of many forms of distress, including hearing voices, and uses this in their work to build connections, as well as to challenge the status quo and provide provocations to ways of thinking or working.
We hope you can join us, either online or in person. We’ll have plenty of space to hear from local Hearing Voices Groups and initiatives – a chance to share your own wisdom about Hearing Voices Groups, too.
