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Huge strides had been made in promoting the importance of spirituality, especially in the diagnostic process for mental illness. Many churches and dioceses continue to make use of the resource pack — a resource for spiritual and pastoral care.
Professor Glynn Harrison (Bristol), a consultant psychiatrist, found the report a helpful, lucid, and fair appraisal of health policies over the past decade. The Christian doctrines of faith, forgiveness, grace, the discovery of identity, and gratitude could reach into prisons with offers of new starts, and were worth celebrating. The Church could influence public-policy development.
Rebecca Swinson (Church of England Youth Council) said that there were very few resources for young people suffering from mental illness, and the Church could play a key part by supporting them.
The Revd Nezlin Sterling (Black-led Churches, New Testament Assembly) said that she supported the main trends of the report. Speaking “as a woman of colour”, she said that statistics gave the impression that psychologically disturbed members of the population in black and ethnic-minority communities were more numerous than in any other communities.
She had worked as director of nursing in a London mental-health establishment. “My people are grossly misunderstood,” she said. The way they spoke, the pitch and volume of their speech, was misinterpreted, and they did not receive culturally appropriate help.
The Bishop of St Albans, the Rt Revd Christopher Herbert, said that the mentally ill needed the Church’s support. Religion had a complex relationship with mental health, as it was possible for religion to be deeply unhealthy.
Dr Anna Thomas-Betts (Oxford) spoke of the link between mental health and criminality: there were large numbers in prison who should be in hospital. People sick enough to be sectioned were being left in prison because there were not enough secure places. More mental-health hospitals should be built.
Anne Toms (Peterborough) had put down seven detailed amendments. She wanted to add “support” to “care”, as care so often was a technical term. She also wanted a clause about “the rising incidence of mental distress among young people”, and to use, particularly in their case, “inappropriate custodial sentences” rather than the word “prison”.
Fay Wilson-Rudd (Bath & Wells) said carers and NHS staff needed support as well as the mentally ill. She had put this down as an amendment.
Dr Jamie Harrison (Durham) spoke of the many mentally ill people in prison and the question of what was custodial and what was therapeutic. He had worked in the segregation units of high-security prisons, when he had been called to see young male inmates in extreme distress, where he had been accompanied by six wardens in full riot gear, though he had not chosen to avail himself of those privileges. These people were in acute need.
Mrs Toms formally moved four amendments.
Professor Helen Leathard (Blackburn) spoke of a member of her family who had an acute, enduring illness, and the support the family had received. The person who had found part-time employment in a place where the staff understood mental illness and there was a “chill-out room”.
Mark Russell (Archbishops’ Council) spoke of one school where four 15-year-olds had taken their own lives in the same month. He also spoke of a project supported by the Church Army which had helped young people who self-harmed to get help. Mental illness was particularly stigmatised among the young, he said.
The amendment noting the rising incidence of mental distress among the young was carried.
Margaret Swinson (Liverpool) spoke against the amendment that would have called attention only to those with severe needs, and the amendment was lost.
John Wilson (Lichfield) said that community mental-health teams were over-stretched, and urged churches to look at telephone support of mentally ill people as part of their pastoral responsibility.
Archdeacon Hawes supported the idea in Miss Wilson-Rudd’s amendment that the Church’s concern for people with mental-health problems should extend to “their carers and NHS staff”. This was subsequently carried after a speech by Anne Martin (Guildford).
Dr Philip Giddings (Oxford) said that it was appropriate for the Synod to continue to affirm the importance of mental-health issues in the community, and to challenge the Government to give it priority. Dr Giddings expressed gratitude to Archdeacon Hawes, who was retiring, for his tireless work.
Clive Scowen (London) raised the situation of patients detained in secure hospitals. Many were very dangerous; others had long ceased to be. Such patients were detained indefinitely until a mental-health review ordered their release.
The Revd Sarah Chapman (Winchester) encouraged the Synod to support those in parishes who were suffering from mental-health problems.
The Synod carried the motion as amended by 297, nem. con., with 3 recorded abstentions.
That this Synod:
(a) affirm the vital necessity of improving services, in hospitals and in the community, for the care and treatment of people with mental- health problems;
(b) welcome the acceptance by Her Majesty’s Government during the passage of the Mental Health Act 2007 of amendments to protect the liberty and interests of those subject to compulsory detention and treatment for mental disorder, and express the hope that the operation of the Act will be carefully monitored;
(c) note with concern the rising incidence of mental distress among young people;
(d) call attention to the acute needs of people with mental disorders in the criminal-justice system and request effective measures to divert them, where appropriate, from prison; and
(e) welcome the recognition within mental-health services of the significance of spirituality for assessment and treatment, and encourage parishes to ensure that the support and care of people with mental-health problems, their carers, and NHS staff is a key priority for the Church’s ministry. |
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