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Post by Admin on Feb 24, 2020 17:59:25 GMT
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Post by Admin on Feb 29, 2020 23:51:39 GMT
End Coercion in Mental Health Services—Toward a System Based on Support Only† www.mdpi.com/2075-471X/8/3/19Abstract Based on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), several UN bodies, among them the High Commissioner for Human Rights, have argued for a complete ban of all coercive interventions in mental health care. The authors conceptualize a system for mental health care based on support only. Psychiatry loses its function as an agent of social control and follows the will and preferences of those who require support. The authors draw up scenarios for dealing with risk, inpatient care, police custody, and mental illness in prison. With such a shift, mental health services could earn the trust of service users and thereby improve treatment outcomes. www.mdpi.com/2075-471X/8/3/19/htm
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Post by Admin on Mar 5, 2020 20:00:40 GMT
In a new report, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture writes that "Involuntary psychiatric interventions based on 'medical necessity' or 'best interests' may well amount to torture." Such interventions, the report says, "generally involve highly discriminatory and coercive attempts at controlling or 'correcting' the victim’s personality, behaviour or choices and almost always inflict severe pain or suffering." www.madinamerica.com/2020/03/report-psychiatric-interventions-torture/
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Post by Admin on Mar 12, 2020 19:57:13 GMT
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Post by Admin on Mar 24, 2020 0:14:47 GMT
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Post by Admin on Mar 25, 2020 7:08:14 GMT
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Post by Admin on Mar 25, 2020 19:57:49 GMT
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Post by Admin on Mar 26, 2020 19:47:17 GMT
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Post by Admin on Mar 27, 2020 15:33:05 GMT
Coronavirus At Disability Rights UK we are well aware that the outbreak of Coronavirus (COVID-19) is causing great uncertainty and stress among our community. We will keep this page up to date with information and links to government and institutional guidance. www.disabilityrightsuk.org/coronavirus
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Post by Admin on Mar 27, 2020 15:45:40 GMT
Coronavirus: MPs and peers pass ‘draconian’ and ‘life-changing’ bill By John Pring on 26th March 2020 Category: Independent Living www.disabilitynewsservice.com/coronavirus-mps-and-peers-pass-draconian-and-life-changing-bill/“Draconian” legislation that is set to have a “life-changing” impact on disabled people’s ability to access social care has become law, after being passed by parliament in just three days. The Coronavirus Act was granted royal assent late yesterday (Wednesday) afternoon after it was passed by both Houses of Parliament, despite being described by a disabled crossbench peer as “a health and social care obliteration bill by a different name”. In her widely-praised speech, Baroness [Tanni] Grey-Thompson (pictured) also told fellow peers during the bill’s second reading in the Lords on Tuesday that the measures outlined were “draconian” and “life-changing for disabled people”. She said the bill was “a temporary suspension of most of the duties contained in the Care Act” and asked if it was “any more than just a cost-saving exercise”. She added: “Decisions will be taken by someone else about our usefulness in the next few months that we will have no control over. “I am starting to worry that disabled people might be seen as expendable during this pandemic.”
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Post by Admin on Mar 27, 2020 15:47:20 GMT
Coronavirus: Disabled people say ‘shocking’ new laws will strip away rights By John Pring on 26th March 2020 Category: Independent Living www.disabilitynewsservice.com/coronavirus-disabled-people-say-shocking-new-laws-will-strip-away-rights/Disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) say measures in the government’s emergency Coronavirus Act – which became law yesterday (Wednesday) – will “run a coach and horses” through their rights to social care. They spoke out as MPs and peers debated, and then approved, measures that will now restrict rights to social care, the rights of people in mental distress, and the rights of disabled children to education and other support. A campaign launched by Inclusion London saw more than 2,000 emails raising concerns about the bill sent to MPs in just two days at the start of the week. Inclusion London said disabled people and DPOs had reacted with “deep shock and concern” to measures that will now remove councils’ duties to provide social care, limit the rights of disabled children to education, and place further restrictions on the rights of people in mental distress under the Mental Health Act. Tracey Lazard (pictured), chief executive of Inclusion London, said the bill “runs a coach and horses through social care” and “strips disabled people of our rights to this support and removes from local authorities the duties to provide it”.
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Post by Admin on Mar 27, 2020 17:17:02 GMT
Benefit assessment companies ‘have made almost no progress’ on safeguarding By John Pring on 26th March 2020 Category: Benefits and Poverty www.disabilitynewsservice.com/benefit-assessment-companies-have-made-almost-no-progress-on-safeguarding/The three companies that carry out disability benefit assessments for the government have made almost no progress in the last year on alerting local authorities to concerns about claimants whose safety is at risk, according to a disabled campaigner. Last year, freedom of information responses from more than a third of councils across England, Scotland and Wales showed that Atos, Capita and Maximus had made just four safeguarding referrals to those local authorities over the previous three years. Now a fresh series of freedom of information requests has shown the three outsourcing giants appear to have taken barely any notice of those concerns. Maximus healthcare professionals assess eligibility for employment and support allowance, while Capita and Atos carry out personal independence payment (PIP) assessments, and all of them carry out hundreds of thousands of face-to-face assessments every year. But despite repeated warnings about the need to inform social services departments when there are clear and significant concerns about a claimant’s safety or welfare, they issued a total of just two referrals each during 2019 and the first month of 2020 across 89 councils. The figures have been compiled by former safeguarding expert Mike Owen, and they relate to the 89 local authorities that have so far responded to his freedom of information requests. This is nearly half of the local authorities across England, Wales and Scotland with social services responsibilities. He said it was clear the three companies were “not doing enough” to safeguard the claimants they were assessing.
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Post by Admin on Mar 31, 2020 19:06:04 GMT
DBC letter to Secretary of State on emergency covid-19 measures FEATUREDPosted on March 27, 2020 The Disability Benefits Consortium (DBC), a network of over 100 organisations, have written an open letter (below) to Thérèse Coffey, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to call for urgent changes to the benefits system to ensure we protect disabled and seriously unwell people from further physical and financial harm during the covid-19 emergency. Full details of these proposals can be found in the DBC reports section. disabilitybenefitsconsortium.wordpress.com/latest-news/
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Post by Admin on Apr 3, 2020 20:16:48 GMT
Coronavirus At Disability Rights UK we are well aware that the outbreak of Coronavirus (COVID-19) is causing great uncertainty and stress among our community. We will keep this page up to date with information and links to government and institutional guidance. www.disabilityrightsuk.org/coronavirus
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Post by Admin on May 27, 2020 18:44:52 GMT
Bringing Human Rights to Mental Health Care: An Interview with UN Envoy Dainius Pūras MIA's Ana Florence interviews United Nations Special Rapporteur Dainius Pūras about his own journey as a psychiatrist and the future of rights-based approaches to mental health. By Ana Florence, PhD -May 27, 2020 www.madinamerica.com/2020/05/bringing-human-rights-mental-health-care-interview-dainius-puras/Dainius Pūras is a medical doctor and human rights advocate. He is currently serving the final year of his term as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health. He is also a professor at Vilnius University, Lithuania, and the director of the Human Rights Monitoring Institute, an NGO based in Vilnius. Pūras has been a human rights activist for 30 years involved in national, regional, and global activities that promote human rights-based policies and services, with a focus on mental health, child health, disabilities, and the prevention of violence and coercion. He was a member of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child from 2007 to 2011. From the time he was appointed to the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2014, Pūras has pushed for a paradigm shift in mental health care. During his mandate, he has written several reports that emphasize the importance of the social determinants of health and criticize the dominance of the biomedical model and the medicalization of depression. While his work has occasionally been met with derision from some mainstream psychiatric institutions, he continues to bring attention to coercive practices and human rights violations and to call for greater investment in rights-based approaches to mental health care and suicide prevention. In this interview, Pūras discusses his own journey as a psychiatrist, his decision to get involved in human rights work, his goals for his UN reports, and the future of rights-based mental health care.
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