A Strength-based Approach to Mental Health: It takes a village to co-create and sustain mental health



In last year's May edition of the New Internationalist, Dinyar Godrej’s article A healthy mind in a healthy society reminds us that good mental health is rooted in the community and is not the unilateral responsibility of the individual. In other words people with mental health challenges are not to blame, nor alone are the professional systems that endeavour to care for… Continue

ABCD conversation:



Laura (Mole) Chapman: A few weeks ago Cormac Russell and I were chatting about the response to the host team’s first blog. We both agreed it had been a positive exercise, and with enthusiasm, I suggested we kept it going for a number of reasons. Firstly, because I thought the experience had been so worthwhile in terms of finding a powerful yet peaceful voice. Secondly, because the feedback we received suggested that we had touched people and made them… Continue

A conversation between members of the Hosting groups at ABCD Europe:

 

Cormac R: I’m worried about where things are going in the UK, especially in terms of how people most marginalised are being treated. There are serious issues of social justice to be addressed here. I am also concerned…

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Asset-Based Community Development Europe

About Us

ABCD Europe is affiliated to the ABCD Institute at the Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois, founded in 1995 by Prof. John McKnight and Prof. Jody Kretzmann.

The ABCD Institute is at the centre of a global movement that considers local assets to be the primary building blocks of co-operative and sustainable communities.

ABCD Europe will support community building work at…

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Providing better ambulances at the bottom of the cliff instead of fences at the top is a half-baked and wasteful endeavour for policy makers and practitioners alike; it resembles the cartoon world of Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, not a blueprint for a complex, integrated and functional society. Nowhere along the life-course is the futility of such practices more apparent than in the third and fourth ages. This reflection piece, therefore, is concerned with the means by which, with older…

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Facilitators Guide: 12 Domains GAME

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Background to the Game

 

This is a game…

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Gathering stories of a time when people like you came together to make a difference is about the best way to promote citizen led action. Check out how it's being done in Gloucestershire:

http://jubilantstories.ning.com/

On their website they say:

'We think there are lots of amazing people, like you, living in Gloucestershire.

We want to invite you to join us on a treasure hunt to unearth the county's…

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Why would you start by telling a positive rather than a negative story-is that just Polly-Anna thinking? Isn’t it important to talk about the negative stuff as well-maybe even more than the positive? If we don’t tell the bad news stories then nothing will change?

These were the questions put to me recently at the end of a talk that I gave to a bunch of University Students. All good questions; but all of them shared the same assumption, that we live in a world where the scales…

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With all this talk about ‘strengths’ I thought I’d start this blog with a quick word on what we mean by the term. Here’s a piece on some of the most common strengths to be found in ourselves and others http://free-cracker-4-jack.xomba.com/your_5_core_strengths_markus_b...

The most important thing to say here is you are the person in charge of what your…

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When I read British tabloids their messaging about young people is unmistakable, young people:

•   CAUSE PROBLEMS
• HAVE PROBLEMS
• ARE PROBLEMS

This is not just peculiar to the UK, this is a global phenomenon, and what’s more we have a long history of running down young people. Here’s proof:

SOCRATES (500BC) - ‘Our youth today now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority, disrespect for older people.  Children…

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By Cormac Russell

I’m a great fan of the Olympics, and a sucker for the pageantry. I can’t help but be impressed by the BBC panoramic coverage, with multiple options at the click of a button. And then there was the Queen’s entrance (via parachute) under the watchful eye of Bond…James Bond. It would be easy to forget amidst all the hype that the modern day Olympics started in the village of Wenlock in Shropshire under the guidance of Dr William Penny Brookes in 1850. In the…

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Here is the facilitators guide for the We Can Game which is a fun way to learn about ABCD:

We%20Can%20Game%20Capacity%20Card%20Sheet%202%2011%20to%2020.pdf

If you're interested in the cards, email me separately at cormac@nurturedevelopment.ie and I'll send you a soft copy…

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I have been most encouraged by the positive reaction of the Wiltshire Assembly to the ABCD message. Watch this space:http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/wiltshire-assembly-conference-report-15-02-2012-people-powered-change.pdf

All the best,

Cormac

Becoming Visible 2011

So imagine this: we have Community Builders doing a fine job, supporting citizens at neighbourhood level to identify, connect and mobilise assets; creating a shared vision for the future. Now what?

 

Now we run into red tape, power plays, the neighbourhood plans meet resistance, people become deflated, morale saps and we're back to square one. Well it doesn't need to pan out that way, though it very well might if we're not strategic.

 

So how can Agents of Change…

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So you've gotten to the point where you can say hand on heart I get ABCD, and I love the concepts. Now, the question 'what do I actually do on Monday morning?', might be surfacing. Well in summary answer, you'd start Community Building. Here is a piece on what a Community Builder does; I've called it the Anatomy of an asset based Community Builder:

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Is Big Society a Catch-22 proposition?

 

Catch-22

n

1. a situation in which a person is frustrated by a paradoxical rule or set of circumstances that preclude any attempt to escape from them

 [from the title of a novel (1961) by J. Heller]

 

Is Big Society a Catch-22 proposition? Yes, but not in the way you’d expect; not as the standard definition would have it. Big Society is a…

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