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Advocacy by Consumers and Carers
As independent advocates and also as WFMH Board members, Janet Meagher, Sylvia Caras and Tony Fowke are particularly concerned with issues put forward by consumers of mental health services and by carers of those experiencing illness. All were actively engaged with these matters at the Vancouver Congress, which was preceded by a separate meeting of the World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry (WNUSP). Janet Meagher and Tony Fowke, both Australians, are involved in the planning of the Melbourne Congress. They are co-chairs of their country ‘s National Consumer/Carer Forum. Janet Meagher, the Federation’s Honorary Secretary, has been appointed the first Patron of the Australian Mental Health Consumers Network and is on the editorial boards of several mental health journals. During 2001 she prepared a new, updated edition of her book “Partnership or Pretence,” which first appeared as a manual for Australian consumer advocates in 1995 and has sold out in several reprintings since then. Sylvia Caras was selected for a second term on the Consumer/Survivor Subcommittee of the US Center for Mental Health Services National Advisory Council and became a member of the Mental Health Section of the American Public Health Association. She was a panelist at a national symposium on stigma and discrimination, organized by the US Center for Mental Health Services in Baltimore in March 2001 and attended by 400 people. (Deputy Secretary General Richard Hunter was also a speaker at this event.) Tony Fowke, a lawyer, is active in a broad range of advocacy that encompasses a legal perspective, concern for the recognition of the rights of people affected by mental illness, and collaboration between those with experience of mental illness and carers. He is involved with the West Australian Association for Mental Health on several levels, as a member of the Board of Management, chair of its education and health promotion sub-committee and chair of its human rights and social justice sub-committee. He is also a member of the carers’ issues sub-committee, and in another capacity chairs the Western Australian Community Advisory Group. This consists of consumers and carers who monitor State and Commonwealth Government mental health policy and programs. Lastly, at State level, he is a legal member of the Mental Health Review Board.
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