Timeline of a mental health crisis

 Having ranted several times this week over what I perceive to be the hypocrisy of Equity suddenly launching a mental health charter, I've chosen to timeline the events that led me to this annoyance.

So Equity's charter was launched after the publication of this paper published in the Guardian:  https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/may/12/performing-arts-depression-equity-covid-job-insecurity However it seems to me that the review that has prompted them into action has failed to address the number of people that enter our industry that are predisposed to mental illness but this is surely a key component to understanding the complexities of mental health issues within our industry.

We all have mental health - but the fight around breaking down the stigma around mental illness has been completely hijacked and sidelined by the media's reporting of mental health and well-being and stops us once again from dealing with the real issues.  

Back in 2014, I started speaking publicly about the fact that having a clinician doing the counselling at The MTA had led us to discover that seemingly a large percentage of our students had some underlying mental illness. I questioned whether we were just "unlucky" in our cohorts, or whether this was a trend replicated in other colleges. Nobody would engage in this conversation other than to tell me that I was being stupid.  Around the same time, a survey on the other side of the world discovered that 1 in 3 of our industry were predisposed to a mental illness, much higher than the 1 in 4 of civvy street. On discovering that fact I actively started campaigning to try and get more colleges to address the issue, as it felt more than coincidental that this tiny college in North London had the same findings as a survey in a country on the other side of the world. The common factor must be our industry.

In 2016 we attempted to have a conference of drama colleges to speak to colleagues to find out if their experiences were the same as ours and to attempt to put in a plan of action to address the issue. As is documented the meeting was poorly attended, but with the people that did bother to turn up it was brutally obvious that the issue extended far beyond The MTA, it's just that The MTA were naming it, and attempting to deal with it differently. It should be noted that 2 Equity reps were in attendance at that conference and both heard the same stories as I did that day. . . go figure.

When I muted the idea of a charter as a result of that meeting I was told by an Equity rep that my approach was wrong, that Equity could not get behind such a campaign because the remit was too large. When I attempted to put a case against this, I was told that I was too difficult to work with and therefore they would not have anything else to do with the campaign.

In July 2016 we launched the #time4change mental health charter - attempting to educate people on what mental illness really was. I literally begged Equity and Spotlight to get involved in this campaign and both refused. I asked them to distribute the charter out to its members (which would have cost them nothing), and both refused. At the time Equity were adamant that they were about to deal with the issue with their Arts Mind website (which launched some time that same year - but which also clearly served a different purpose). It was around a year later that Equity eventually sent something out to its members about the charter. A low-key aside in one of their newsletters.

In 2014 it was clear that our industry was seeing an increase (or finally recognising perhaps) in the number of people that entered our industry with an underlying mental illness. Seeing those numbers rising year on year I blogged at the start of the pandemic that the mental illness epidemic that already existed in the UK was going to explode after the lockdowns. People who would usually keep busy to stop themselves from focussing on their minds were suddenly left in silence and alone. 

Over on The MTA's Instagram, we've done a series of interviews with students that were diagnosed with a mental illness at college. All of them say the same - the symptoms were there from an early age but doctors refused to believe that they were ill. In other words, there are countless adolescents being dismissed with "growing pains" who could be getting early intervention help with mental illnesses. An intervention that could have prevented a later in life crisis.

Our industry is the ultimate escape route for many - it's a place to find your 'tribe', like-minded people that are attempting to fit in. Lots are running away from difficult pasts, but I've come to believe that lots are also running away from difficult 'mental states'. Anxiety and depression are rife, but are these created by the industry, or were they already loaded into people's DNA before this career was even an option?

We've come to almost celebrate a declaration of anxiety as opposed to encouraging people to seek medical help in order to make their lives more manageable. People who are already fighting an undiagnosed mental illness will be low on resilience to deal with all the other stuff that our industry throws at us - and yes this includes appalling treatment towards freelancers, stress over pay, working conditions and all the other things in the new survey.

My reason for ranting is that I don't want to wait a decade until all the HR stuff has been dealt with for people to discover that there's still a mental health crisis in our industry. I've already witnessed too many times how devasting a mental health crisis can be. Our NHS is simply not equipped to deal with a crisis (as strange as that sounds). I've documented before how I've seen somebody have to get arrested in a bid to get the right mental health care as they were considered not ill enough to be taken into hospital, but clearly not well enough to function successfully in society.  Or what about the ED sufferers, considered not 'thin' enough to access the services that they truly need?

We shouldn't pathologise regular hardships, but nor should we minimise ill health just because society's stigma has stopped us from recognising early symptoms.

In 2019 I (ironically) was asked to give a keynote speech at Equity's ArtsMind Symposium. I sat and listened when people made the exact same discoveries that I had been campaigning about years earlier. I spoke about finding out that BAPAM had published a paper about the mental health crisis in our industry. A study that had concluded that best practices for drama colleges should include a clinician-led service around pastoral care.  I had noted in my speech that I found it odd that The MTA had never been approached as a case study in this review given that we had been running a clinician-led service since we started.  I'll note here though that it's now 3 years since that speech and we are still the only college to have a clinician-led service!

Equity, Spotlight, the Federation of Drama Schools are all working within their own little echo chambers, afraid to open up the discussions to the outsiders that could be perceived to be disrupters waiting to smash down those gates that they all keep so well. I believe that The MTA has paid quite a high price by me unwittingly being one of those disrupters. 

So forgive me when I rant - but it's been 8 years now of shouting about the same things, and STILL nothing is being done about it. If Equity had gotten behind our campaign years ago we might now have one of the most robust industries around. 

There are several organisations trying to change the narrative, but that noise shouldn't come from "us", it should come from the organisations that actually have the authority to make a change, not from the people on the outside constantly banging on the door of the establishment.

Has the education system 'broken' vocational training?

How many wannabe actors or indeed their parents have ever read a casting brief? My suspicion is not very many. Let's face it, when you're young and naive you believe that your talent is so great that one of the great directors or producers is going to spot you in a school play/amdram production, pluck you away from your small-town sensibilities, and whisk you off to the 'bright lights'. As a supportive parent, it's unfeasible to think that your child won't succeed. After all - they clearly have 'it' (whatever 'it' is).

In reality, a casting brief is a set of requirements for a specific role/job - what it never asks for, is your qualification. No brief goes out requiring a BA(Hons) in theatre, or a BTEC in performing arts. So why are colleges flocking to hook up with universities in order to offer these golden pieces of paper then? Quite simply it's all to do with finance. All government funding streams or government top up streams require a college to prove via examination results that they are doing a good job. So when the drama colleges suddenly started to offer degrees just over a decade ago, it wasn't because they felt that it benefitted the future careers of their students, as they know (like we all know), that their degree isn't really the 'back-up' that parents seem to think that it is. If you decide on a career swap, you'll be going back to college anyway in order to be trained in the area that you've chosen your new career to be. However what they don't tell you, is that lots of colleges will also allow you to do these educational top-ups with proof of a different kind of education, and with proof of your career to date. Once you're into postgrad education the criteria for entry is more reflective of life. Of course, by this point you've used up all your government-supported financial help, so you are entirely funding your new career path on your own.

However, for many non-vocational colleges performing arts courses are a complete cash cow. We are in an oversubscribed industry, with everybody secretly thinking that their talent will be enough to give them a career, therefore it doesn't matter where they train. I once did some work with some 3rd years on a musical theatre degree course at a regular university. They had recently just finished a self-led project aka cheap to run as it required no staff involvement aka a waste of time. They were paying £27K to train themselves. I auditioned someone from another university who was preparing for their showcase. . . a student-directed showcase, which staff could be called in to assist them in should they have a difficulty. This particular student acknowledged that the showcase was simply an end of course show - there was absolutely no chance of an agent coming to see them in their student-led performance. They had been working on the showcase (and their showcase alone) for the whole of the term. They were also paying £27K to train themselves.

As drama colleges clambered to get affiliated to universities with the promise of better resources, more finance, infrastructure support, what some of them lost sight of was the training experience. As the universities saw the numbers of people applying for these courses they increased their intake, and indeed in a few instances increased the number of courses that they were offering too. What they didn't do though was increase the quality of the training.

I taught in HE when this was beginning to happen. I suddenly found myself teaching an acting to camera class with a cohort of students that included students majoring in things like graphic design, engineering, in fact, you name it, there was probably somebody in the class that was studying it. The module had been diluted from its specialism into a 'filler' module for anybody in the university. I resigned after 1 semester of teaching, having taught the course for 2 years previously. The students that needed that module were fighting to get on it but had to fight people that had no requirement of the skillset.

We know that we're in an oversubscribed industry. We also know that the situation has got worse,
with new courses and colleges popping up every year. The long-established colleges have also been expanding, be that with new courses or just by increasing their numbers. Courses that once operated with 20-40 students can now have in excess of 150 students/year. It's the simple economics of supply and demand, isn't it? If you're auditioning thousands of people every year for a handful of places, why wouldn't you expand your model in order to accommodate more students and create a bigger revenue? With a bigger revenue stream, you can build bigger and better premises, which will attract more students, which increases the demand.

And so it continues.

Suddenly training actors has become a lucrative industry for some. Alongside the weird and wonderful new courses that are springing up, we have the bread and butter courses which create a cunning revenue stream for the colleges. Students not actually ready for a 3-year training course, can now easily find a 'foundation course' which will charge them to get prepared for training. If you've done a degree where you've been primarily self-taught, you'll need additional (aka 'some') training, so pop on a post-grad course as well. The bread and butter of the already lucrative filling of the 'main course'.

Obviously having founded a college which pioneered the 2-year model I already have some questions about the traditional 3-year model (though also completely understand why lots of people need that time to solidify things, I just realise that not everybody does). So I have even more questions now that training to be a performer is taking some people 5 years - or to be more specific is costing people 5 years worth of fees.  Yet those same colleges are being urged to think about the socio-economic diversity of their student intake.

It's a tough model to break though. Most wannabe performers grow up wanting to go to one of the 'main' colleges. The colleges that they've seen in programmes since they were little. They don't differentiate the fact that they're seeing that college's name so often because they've been going for 50 or more years, or indeed that they're seeing a college's name because that college is spewing out hundreds of wannabe performers every year, so if only 5% of them are doing well, it's enough to make an impact on the programme references. It's interesting to note that none of these established colleges readily publicise their long term stats. How many of the class of 2005, for example, have actually managed to have a sustained career? Instead, they'll (understandably) focus on the alumni that have the more popular public following, even though they might have graduated decades ago.

The market is cornered. You grow up wanting to be a performer going to the college that your idol went to. You're not good enough for that yet, so they pop you on their foundation course (and charge you for the privilege of course). You're happy to be there, as, after all, your idol went there so it's bound to be great, and surely the £10K investment in the foundation course will get repaid when you secure funding for their main course at the end of the year. Of course in reality that only happens for a few people, the others are still unsuccessful at their dream college, but now they're also £10k poorer, their parents have bought into the myth that they need a degree, so off they pop to the nearest university to get the 'golden ticket' degree. 4 years later and over £50K poorer (adding together living costs and tuition costs), they leave college, with no chance of working, haven't got a clue how to get work (as a lot of the university courses genuinely don't teach you that skill, just check a few internet forums for proof of the number of graduates asking really basic questions around working in the industry), are unable to sign up for Spotlight (which automatically limits their career. . . I mean as unfair as that statement is, it is also a fact) and find themselves looking for a new career, with their parents lauding the fact that their 'fall back' degree has proven to be a saviour.

And so it continues.

Meanwhile, for those of us that have resolutely stayed in vocational training, and have remained small by choice, in order to maintain a good staff/student ratio - our students are being hit from all angles. They have the 'grown-ups' getting concerned because they're not getting a formal qualification, financially they are not entitled to any government support at all - even though they are working in excess of 40 contact hours/week. As they scramble around looking for sponsors organisations like Equity and Spotlight, who are quick to take their money to join up to the union and the register, won't put a purely vocational college on their self assessed 'approved' list, which would allow us to at least submit our students for certain bursary awards like those funded by SOLT, solely because we don't offer a formal qualification. Yet we're the only college to maintain an open record of every single one of our graduates - proving that we're more likely to create a sustainable career for our students than a lot of the other colleges on their list. So to recap, the training is valid enough for a career (our students can join both Equity and Spotlight), but we can't knock down the walls of the establishment in order to get closer to some much needed financial help for our students, because we don't offer a 'golden ticket' degree. That'll be the same degree that you never see requested on a casting brief. Where do most of those casting briefs get posted? On Spotlight.

This week we've seen a long-established college that took the poison chalice of a university 'merger' close. We've already seen other courses at other colleges get shut down as unviable. Is this a trend, or just a few much-needed pruning exercises? As the established colleges get bigger and the complaints about the numbers increase, we see no decline in the number of applicants, as parents (and students) accept the 'herd' mentality, as (please refer back to the first paragraph), and believe that the 'cream will always rise', and 'they have to learn to deal with the competition anyway'. Personally I'd rather my child learn to deal with competition at a school sports day, not when they're 16 and I'm being asked to pay £9k-£14k a year, but maybe that's because I don't have access to that sort of money? The college buildings get bigger and better, enticing more and more people that "College X" is the go-to place - just look at the number of rooms it has? Of course, they only need 120 studios because they have so many students, but a college building of that size will also increase its running costs, so best take an extra 50 students a year in order to support it.

And so it continues.

Since I opened The MTA in 2009 I've been shouting about the fact that our industry needs regulating. To be clear - that's not by the old boy network that has been effectively self-regulating since the start of the time. It needs an independent body to look at ALL the courses and ALL the colleges to see who is really delivering what. Audit the staff, audit the finance, audit the true story around pastoral care (don't get me started on that one again), and audit the true facts of sustainable careers. The government should stop funding those degrees that are purely providing 'life skills' yet claiming to be offering a 'career'. I completely buy into the idea that a college education is great, but when funds are short, let's not be funding a degree that isn't worth the paper that it's written on. Fund the courses that are getting the results. In other words let's get some transparency out there and stop the myth that has been co-created by so many people and organisations, all of whom have a vested interest in the findings. Then let's get those facts out to schools and the wannabes and their parents.

Working Together

When you write a semi regular blog you almost feel obliged to write a New Year feature.

I've been very torn about what to write, as in 2016 the world appeared to go crazy, in a year that I was instrumental in a campaign which was attempting to empower people to stop going crazy.

The #time4change initiative came out of a blog that I wrote in 2014 http://www.thereviewshub.com/blog-annemarie-lewis-thomas-support-each-other-in-2015/
10 months later and nothing had changed: http://www.thereviewshub.com/opinion-annemarie-lewis-thomas-taming-the-black-dog/ except that I was finding myself more and more on the periphery of our industry. All of my own doing I should add - nobody likes being called out, least of all me. However Equity, Spotlight, BAPAM, Drama UK. . . the list goes on, were seemingly doing nothing to address the mental health epidemic in our industry. Now in fairness to all these organisations they might have been working tirelessly behind the scenes to make changes, but when lives are at stake I don't think that you wait 20 months to reveal your grand plan (which in the end is what happened).

In March, The MTA hosted a Mental Health Conference, and the indifference that I encountered was staggering. At the conference Equity reassured us that things WERE being planned, and we just had to be patient. Sadly that is not my best feature. I'm not a sitter. Be patient as people became patients? I don't think so. I had this plan, which in itself was madness.  I tried to 'sell' the idea to someone involved in one of the aforementioned organisations. I wanted the organisation's backing, as I knew that if they got behind it we could roll it out in a week! The vitriol that followed has spurred me on throughout 2016. Yes, I'm antagonistic. Yes, I'm persistent. Yes, I tend to think in bigger pictures. Yes, I'm Welsh and my mother's daughter, and if you think that shooting down my idea with a load of personal insults will stop me, then you have no idea about Welsh heritage at all, especially Welsh women! You say no - we say, "I'll bloody show you"!

Angie Peake donated her time, the #time4change Mental Health charter was written, and off I tweeted. I tweeted constantly for months. I emailed colleagues that I had once said hello to at various shows, conferences etc. . . any link to get me through the door to colleges, theatres, production companies and agencies.  I made sure that I had a few big hitters on board before announcing the charter, as I knew that by their very presence some would naturally follow.  Fast forward 6 months and 115 organisations have signed the Charter.

I never had a desire to run a mental health campaign, I just found myself compelled to DO something. Empirical evidence was growing which supported my long standing personal belief (as documented here) and yet nobody was 'acting' on it (ironic for our industry don't you think?).
That said, I also never had a desire to open a drama college - and look where that got me?

The campaign has exasperated me - I just don't understand why people won't join. Why can't they make a commitment to send out an email? Why are people reluctant to see that there's an issue here that we're not addressing? The bullshit that I've heard this year;  Smaller colleges who could enforce the charter in a heartbeat, claiming that they have no money to implement it? Strange that - as the most that it would cost them would be for a mental health consultant to train their staff, and to speak to their students. So the cost of a consultant for a day? If your margins are that tight maybe you should rethink your business plan!  Production companies and agencies that will 'think about it'? What is there to think about? I'm asking you so send out a PDF.  That's it? Other than BAPAM none of the major organisations mentioned in the 2nd paragraph have entertained endorsing or joining the initiative. Hurrah for BAPAM I say who, as we all know, put health (mental or physical) first. Were Spotlight or Equity to join us - we could flood the industry in one go. How disappointing that both organisations have been too busy to discuss the possibility with us. As for Drama UK. . . well I had always said that they were a waste of space. Their demise in 2016 will, I believe, spur our sector on to be world class, in both our training AND our pastoral care.

However the campaign has also exhilarated me. It's enabled me to meet like minded people. People that like me, don't give up at the first hurdle. People like Pat O'Toole from Rose Bruford, who was not only 'in' from the get go, but was out to get everybody else to sign up too.  Mountview and Arts Ed - surely 2 of the most established drama colleges in the UK signed up to the charter. Honest and frank discussions with Stephen from Mountview and Chris from Arts Ed, email chats with Nick from PPA, have all restored my faith in the industry. All four are people that want to make a difference. There is no competition just differences that make us all unique BUT with a unified fight against mental health that will make us all stronger. I can't wait to work closer with all the colleges that have signed up, as we all begin to learn from each other and to give each other support as we work our way through the maze of mental health issues that we are confronted with on a daily basis. The journalist Susan Elkin who has consistently backed the initiative, writing several blogs/features on it when others didn't want to know. Mark Shenton for kindly giving the campaign 'a soft launch' in one of his blogs. Just people restoring my faith in humanity actually, in a world that was appearing to stop caring about anything other than 'self'.

The campaign is ongoing - but given that I have a college to run, shows to write, and a young family to spend time with, it will now run in the background, ready to be sent out to anybody that's interested. The colleges have all agreed to meet early this year (2017) to work out how our peer supervision is going to work.

A couple of weeks ago I was humbled to learn that The MTA has been short listed for The Stage School of the Year Award, an award that we'd already won once, back in 2012. How brilliant that the citation acknowledged #time4change as something important.

I won't name the person that insulted and patronised me way back at the start of the year, as their name isn't important. However I would like to thank them - as they know who they are. If they hadn't been so bloody rude to me I probably wouldn't have been so dogmatic about making this thing work. I'd like to think that they knew that all the time. A paradoxical intervention if you like.

Here's hoping that #time4change continues to grow in 2017. I'm looking forward to meeting with BAPAM to ensure that we keep joining up the dots - as we are only ever stronger together, and whilst that slogan didn't work for Brexit, I still believe that it works in theatre, which after all, has always been about collaboration, and working together.

Happy New Year

Why Wouldn't You? #time4change

We are now on the 4th week of the #time4change #mentalhealthcharter as launched by Mark Shenton in The Stage in July. If this initiative is news to you, please check out an earlier post which sets out how it came about: http://althomasmd.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/its-time4change.html

I remember from last year's fundraising at The MTA for our 'Big Move', as the week's go on, it gets harder and harder to campaign in an innovative way.  I feel like I've said it in as many ways as I can now...I'm even boring myself BUT what makes this so different is that when I get that desire to call it a day, I'm reminded of the contents of the emails I was sent prior to the #time4change conference back in March.  Emails listing some of the appalling ways that people with clear mental health difficulties, were treated as part of their 'training'.  Remembering how one uneducated faculty member can actually, inadvertently do so much damage.  Remembering that if Mental Health Education isn't at the core of a college, and therefore supported by the ruling establishment, students in crises can literally be tipped over the edge.

Just this week I was sent an email by somebody that had approached us for help quite some time ago now, someone who had gone through one of the 'top' accredited colleges, one of the colleges that has already told me that 'they're OK'....'their systems work', and yet this person (who of course could have been the exception) literally slipped through the pastoral net, and had found themselves for years out in the mental health wilderness, not knowing where to look for support.  They contacted us because I 'go on' about the subject, so they thought that I could have signposted where they should go next.  Thankfully in this case we did (signpost), the person was in a place ready to hear, and they're now being successfully treated and their life has changed.

Similarly lots of tweets getting RT'ed' this past week by students (past and present) of 'top' accredited colleges, asking their Principals to consider signing up to the #time4change #mentalhealthcharter. Several of them telling me that this initiative was overdue.  Surely this implies that current Mental Health Policies, however well meaning, need improving?

So here's my big question of the week. . .WHY wouldn't you sign the charter? What have you got to lose? For agents and producers it costs them absolutely nothing. That's all they have to do is a file merge and add the Charter to their standard contracts or welcome packs.  I mean that is literally 5 mins work (unless you're on my office computer which admittedly means that it would take 30 mins....it is most definitely coming up to a much needed trip to a Genius store). The cost to a theatre is minimal. You just have to locate, in your area, the nearest Mental Health crises intervention team, locate a Buddhist centre providing mindfulness and meditation...plus a couple more things, just to add to your welcome pack. So what's that? Getting an employee to spend 30 mins googling that information (hell...we've even offered to help them out locating these places if they really don't know where to start).  The cost to a college? 1 - 2 full days of having a Mental Health Practitioner with you to deliver a speech to your students, explaining WellBeing and giving a Mental Health overview, and to give a training session(s) to your staff.   That is it.  Other than that it's the same as for everyone else - a file merge to add the #time4change #mentalhealthcharter Fact Sheet to the welcome packs.

Simple isn't it?

Inexpensive isn't it?

So WHY are we having such difficulty selling this simple concept?

This week saw the launch of The Stage, Spotlight UK, BAPAM and Equity initiative ArtsMind, prompted by a survey they did back in 2015 http://www.artsminds.co.uk/ launched by The Stage 5 days ago: https://www.thestage.co.uk/news/2016/actor-suicides-prompt-launch-of-artsminds-mental-health-website/ Equity's Louise Granger had mentioned that this web portal would be launching this year back in March at our conference, and it's just brilliant that they've created a one stop 'hub' for performers to access as part of their mental health/well being tool kit. However when I was hashtag checking all things #time4change just a day after the launch of this website (a daily occurrence to ensure that I haven't missed anything important), I decided to hashtag check #artsmind and the amount or rather the lack of hashtags was shocking.  This major initiative that had taken months to build, with 4 of our major industry heavy weights behind it, yet it could barely manage a presence for longer than a few days.

Again my question is WHY? WHY wasn't everyone taking care of 'everyone else' and pointing all creatives in that direction, so that webpage could be bookmarked 'in case of emergency'?

Then I was having a conversation with someone the other night who was asking me WHY I thought that people were reluctant to get involved...and it came to me.  The stigma/fear is so great surrounding Mental Health, people are reluctant to engage in a process that might make them hold the mirror up to themselves.  To engage in our initiative you would need to educate yourself, which might mean reflecting on old behaviours, or indeed there may be an acknowledgement of having a difficulty yourself that has never been addressed.  The current consensus appears to be - if you're talking about it, you have it, and if you have it, I don't want to know. The stigma is alive and well.  Heads are well and truly buried in the ground on this one.

I have consciously never divulged my own Mental Health status whilst campaigning - yet I received a positively vitriolic attack, presuming that I had started this campaign off due to 'my own issues'. Like I was attempting to create a problem in our industry for the hell of it?

So my big question of week 4 is WHY?

If you already have a robust Mental Health Policy in place you would naturally be fulfilling the terms of the Charter = RESULT. Sign up, and let's add your name and status to the campaign.

If you're concerned that it'll take too much time - see above. We're talking a maximum of 30 mins out of your life to fulfil the terms of the charter = RESULT. Sign up, and let's add your name and status to the campaign.

If you're worried about the costs - see above.  Colleges would suffer the only financial penalty, but these are clearly costs that can be absorbed by the organisations in a bid to help and educated the young of our industry, and that after all is our job = RESULT. Sign up, and let's add your name and status to the campaign.

Finally my question is a bit more personal - to those people that I've contacted to attempt to get them interested in the initiative WHY have you ignored the email/tweet (or often both)? WHY wouldn't you just show a basic level of manners and say that for personal reasons you're not interested in this, or you think that it's nonsense or just a simple 'thanks but no thanks'? Every single time you've emailed/tweeted me, I've shown you the courtesy of an answer - WHY aren't you able to do the same.  Trust me. . . I'm very busy too, but I always find time for manners.

So.....WHY wouldn't you sign the charter, and spread the word about ArtsMind while you're at it?

If this has made you interested in Charter - info@theMTA.co.uk putting #time4change as the subject.

PS...if you signed I could stop going on about it. Now WHY wouldn't you want that?

Mental Health in Drama Schools Conference

So after 4 years of quietly mentioning it, 2 years of positively shouting about it, and about 18 months of screaming in despair about it....I finally decided to do something positive about what I considered to be the plight of poor mental health provision in drama schools.  What better thing to do than to call a conference? To call together all the people interested in this area and then to brainstorm how to ensure that we improved things.

I won't 'go on' again, but the perceived understanding(taken from a variety of International Studies) is that 1out of every 3 people involved in the arts will have a mental health issue at some point in their lives.  This is higher than the National average of 1 in 4.  At The MTA we've always had a unique take on this area insomuch as we've made it one of the cornerstones of the course.  There is no stigma around Mental Health, all the students understand various mental health issues, and most importantly of all most check in with our Health and Welfare consultant at some point during their training (and indeed after).  H&W in this instance happens to be Angie Peake who is a dual registered nurse and therapist, who has the skill set to actually diagnose mental health illnesses, and then as she also happens to be a nurse prescriber is also able to liaise with the GPs etc as to what the best course of treatment is, and finally is able to discuss a relapse prevention plan with the student.

So the conference was called being very clear that we were going to be discussing our unique model..however as we acknowledged in the conference we could only do this because at any time the maximum students we could have would be 44.  Even that was pushing our resources sometimes, but we could do it!

Since I've started shouting about Mental Health I've successfully managed to polarise friends in the industry. There are some that have found me to be the annoying fly that won't go away, but the one who can't be ignored, however the majority of the industry just agrees with me that there is 'an' issue.

I advertised the conference for 4 months on FB and twitter.  I also put out a request for people to tell me their experiences of Mental Health awareness at college. Though not inundated with stories, I didn't hear one good thing (with the exception of The MTA lot that wrote in, who mostly acknowledged an illness, said that they had been helped through it by Angie, and informed me that they were now having a lovely time carrying on with the rest of their lives).  The stories that I was told were shocking and dangerous. Staff saying completely inappropriate things to people, which they've continued to carry with them to this day.  In a few cases inappropriate 'treatment' at colleges had resulted in people not going on to have the career that they would have liked.  Now even reading the emails with a realisation that I was hearing a 'one sided' argument, and that the person could have been misinterpreting what a teacher was saying to them...it was still bloody shocking.   People bravely wrote of their experiences purely in the hope that by writing the email, they might make a difference.  Their voice (though anonymous) would be finally heard.

A few weeks before the conference The Stage had done a 'Green Room' feature (which is set out like an informal Green Room discussion between actors all talking under a pseudonym), on Mental Health in the Arts. The feature was shocking - the ignorance displayed by the actors was terrifying BUT if that was the perception of 'well' people in the industry, then at the very least we had an industry that needed educating.

In the build up I'd had several conversations with people about the conference, and indeed reassurances that 'so and so' would be there representing 'such and such' institution. Interestingly a few people that I'd contacted about the conference who had been extremely public about their own mental health struggles had failed to connect at all.  Still I increased the tweets and FB posts right up until the day. A big shout out here actually to @WestEndProducer who was a big twitter supporter, never failing to RT when asked (unlike lots of other tweeters with large followings)

Then came the day of the conference and I was literally inundated with messages from people wishing me well for the conference, and suddenly revealing their own mental health pasts, and again stating that something had to be done about it. I felt like the Mother Abbess in the Sound Of Music hearing all these 'confessions'.  Yet why were they all so hidden? Is the stigma around Mental Health even worse than I realised?  I should add that I had been thinking that way for quite some time, as since I've been blogging and shouting about it, The MTA's phone had started to ring, not with the usual student enquiries, but this time from people saying that they didn't know where to go, but they were in trouble, they were ill - please could we help them? They'd read some of my blogs or had seen that I was 'going on ' about mental illness so maybe I could point them in the right direction.  Hell at one point even a major production company contacted us in order to have some assistance on a Mental Health issue.  To be fair the only direction I can ever point anybody in on this topic is Angie, who, as far as I'm aware always helped them out.

The conference was set up to be time limited, to ensure that we could remain focussed and on topic, as it's so easy to drift. Although we set a rule up about protecting anonymity all the 'delegates' have indeed tweeted to say that they were with us, so I'm not breaking any confidences when I say that we had someone from a FE college (their identity remains protected I believe), Susan Elkin from The Stage, Pat O'Toole from Rose Bruford, Laura and James the co-founders and Principals of the Dorset School of Acting and Equity, who impressively had sent a senior member from their main office plus Adam Pettigrew the Chair of Equity YMC...and ............well that was it.

I completely applaud Equity for sending 2 senior members, in an instant showing how important a subject they considered this to be. I'd go so far as to give them a standing ovation given that I had gone a few rounds with them on Twitter over this topic many a time.  Similarly great to see our industry's paper there ready to report on this important and life changing subject...but where were the other drama colleges? Drama UK who I've always maintained are a joke, didn't show, in spite of being sent a reminder email a few days before (which of course was acknowledged by an automated response. No doubt they were over in China or somewhere building up their brand awareness). However where were the course leaders that on twitter always publicly comment on my thoughts about Mental Health, and always ask to arrange a coffee to discuss the topic...and who have never, ever followed through?  Where was the Pastoral team member from another major college who had had an extensive email exchange with me over the conference, agreeing that something needed to be done, and stating that they had already popped the date in their diary? Where were the actors, who had been very vocal with me about their own struggles during college, and telling me in no uncertain terms that they would be at this conference as something had to be done?

10 of us in total were in that room, and do you know what the saddest thing of all was...that had exceeded my expectations.  I knew that all those people wouldn't turn up.  Everybody today is a social network warrior. They'll shout about stuff on FB, they'll press 'attend' to all the political events and rallies. They'll write posts and share posts about how we should be implementing social change. They'll moan and rant about simply anything...but when it comes to leaving their homes or offices to actually implement that change....nothing.  Of course there will always be the anti establishment extremists who turn up at any event ready to fight whoever over whatever, but they're not the people that we're trying to engage here. I'm talking about the everyday actor who knows that this industry is struggling (and I know this because as well as seeing it myself, they've told me).  Talk to me about your time at college when you witnessed people going through so much pain, with so little help. Oh that's right, you will  talk or write to me about that 'poor' person, but you won't go and sit in a room one afternoon in a bid to help the next poor sod going through the system?

As it turns out the conference was extremely useful.  We all sat around and nodded as we shared experiences of mental traumas in college.  Even in that room the 1 in 3 was sounding like an optimistic figure.

Equity were very much on the front foot, and had some plans underway which might help the issue somewhat.

However there IS still an issue here, and if anything Drama UK being useless has made it even harder. All of the colleges, big and small, should have a mental health policy..but you know a policy means nothing.  It means that someone sat down, like I'm sat writing this blog, filling up a word document, with all the right 'things' that we'd want them to say, no doubt hitting on the buzz words of the moment.  Here's the rub though.....it don't mean a thing, if in practice your staff and your students don't understand Mental Health.  A person in crises won't just suddenly knock on a stranger's door to tell them their issues, more than that, if they're in crises, they might not even know that they're in crises. Good mental health policy (as witnessed at the conference actually) showed that these things had to be 'picked up' not just ignored by staff and students, or put down as 'being a bit off', or 'having the bad day'.

Who does now regulate drama schools? Or indeed does it matter? Should good Mental Health policies (and by that I mean the ones that actually deliver....not like one that I heard about that got 'put on the table every time that there was an inspection') almost get a Kitemark, to show that they operate within an agreed set of guidelines (or at the very least are attempting to)? If so, who's to hand out the elusive 'marks' and then who's going to go around every year and check that they're being upheld?  It almost needs a 'secret shopper' approach to ensure that standards are upheld.

So lots of questions still to be answered, but at least we started.

Ironically it's not my students that I'm worried about, I know that we're implementing an active Mental Health policy.  I'm actually fighting for seemingly the majority of the rest of them. The stunning teachers, like the other ones in the conference, are fighting for their students that they can't get hold of because they're swamped and over subscribed.

How to convince a 'business' to invest in the invisible that won't pay back a dividend for years? Invest in your students today and don't see any reward for years? As that's what we're asking.  The payback for good Mental Health would be experienced throughout the entire industry (hell CSM's wouldn't know what had hit them). First though...how to get everybody to leave their homes and offices to have the discussion?

Theatre is hard...so let's look after our own shall we?

This time last year I wrote this: http://www.thereviewshub.com/blog-annemarie-lewis-thomas-support-each-other-in-2015/ I felt sure that it would generate some interest...maybe even a couple of enquiries.  In reality not ONE college got in touch to find out what I've been going on about.

To start at the very beginning...as we all know it's a very good place to start.  When I first started blogging for the then called Public Reviews site I wrote this blog: http://www.thepublicreviews.com/blog-annemarie-lewis-thomas-mental-health-education-starts-at-college/ which was all about The MTA's approach to mental health.  It generated quite a bit of interest at the time.  People started to email me telling me their horror stories of colleges dealing (albeit with good intentions no doubt) so badly with mental health issues.  If I heard one more time 'if only I'd trained with you'... not because of our course....but because of our pioneering pastoral health policy.

I blogged for nearly 2 years for that site, and would regularly revisit the issue of Mental Health in colleges.  Someone pointed out to me that I was at risk of creating digital 'wallpaper'...as I was just going on about it too much.  Too much?  Too much? I hear a horror story at least once a month of how appalling the so called 'mental health' policies are at some places.  I've heard how one well meaning staff member did something potentially so damaging to a person we're lucky that they're still here fighting to get well.  I get regularly get emails from people that I don't know, but know that we 'bang on' about Mental Health Awareness and therefore maybe...just maybe we could point them in the right direction of where to turn, as they are in real crises, and sometimes in real danger.  Just this week a major production company got in touch with us, as they needed some assistance on the subject of mental health and even they didn't know who to ask...and again remember me banging on about it, so got in touch with us to find a route through their dilemma with a cast member (incidentally how great is it that a company was attempting to help a cast member in difficulty, as opposed to simply replacing them - bravo to them?)

Before everyone tells me the same argument...yes we know that Equity supports BAPAM, and we know that BAPAM is an amazing organisation (and I truly mean that, having used their service myself in the past), but we're still missing the basic fact that if you're in the middle of a mental health crises it is likely to be really hard to physically turn up or indeed phone a BAPAM office, whereas it's a little easier to turn up or call your college's Mental Health consultant, that you've seen hanging around college regularly...or have heard stories about them from your peers.  Which is the less daunting?  Even better than that...what if your faculty had some mental health awareness themselves and had spotted your difficulties creeping up sooner, meaning that you were instructed to get some help BEFORE you reached a crises point? This is not a Christmas miracle that we're talking about...it's about every college having a mental health specialist at the heart of its faculty.  It's dead simple. At The MTA both staff, students and ambassadors (the name that we've given to our graduates) can freely access this person 24/7 365 days a year.  Our pioneering pastoral health policy puts the onus on us to spot the problem and to try and provide the solution.  As opposed to the more traditional book an appointment with the counsellor sort of approach that most institutions adhere too.

Now I'm not saying that we've got it right. Hell, I'm sure that we haven't...and I'm looking forward to the conference that we're hosting on March 15th https://www.facebook.com/events/911328365625354/ to listen to other approaches to see what we can all gleen from each other and from different approaches.  However I would say, that at least we're really trying to get somewhere with the Mental Health epidemic that is in our industry.

I have got into so many online fights this year about this topic...why are you telling me that your college provides a mental health service...if you yourself don't know anything about it, and more importantly having spoken to a number of your students...neither do they? Why tell me that your college told you that they were there to help you when you reached a difficulty during your induction week, when you've already forgotten the procedure by the time you needed that service, and that service is just with a counsellor NOT a mental health professional.  Much more importantly WHY the hell aren't you asking yourself can I do anything else to help my students...as opposed to taking the high road with what you think you're already providing.

I'm proud of the service that we provide, but I don't think that it's perfect... so I'm not saying 'hello we've got it right and everybody else is wrong' I'm shouting (and repeating myself) ' hello we're doing pastoral care a bit differently, it's bringing up surprising statistics....maybe this is an area that we ALL need to be looking at really carefully....how can we improve what we're doing?'

I've been around a fair while, in 20 years I've been around most colleges in one capacity or another. I've worked in the entertainment industry for  26 years...I'm 'going on' about this as I can see the situation getting worse.  We are losing colleagues far too young, because we didn't 'catch' them soon enough.  One young loss is one too many...yet thanks to FB even I can see that the numbers are much higher than 'one'.

Regularly I get ambassadors coming back saying that so and so in their cast could just do with seeing 'Angie' (the name of our mental health specialist)...as they clearly needed some help.  Our students have such an awareness of mental health because we 'go on about it' all the time.  You know why? Because I don't want the next young loss to be one of mine!  I know that it might be, I'm not naive....but I want to know that I did EVERYTHING possible to prevent it.  At the very least we've removed the stigma and shame of people suffering with Mental Health difficulties at the college.

You have to be so robust to survive in our industry, daily rejection, weeks/months even years out of work. It's not like 'real life' is it? My first years just did as their first show Robin Soans' A State Affair, where they were forced to explore issues such as drug abuse, sex abuse and rape.  You don't really run the risk of your past coming back to haunt you in that way if you sit behind a desk all day (unless your office environment is particularly cutting edge). Water cooler discussions tend 'not to go there'...but lots of good theatre not only 'goes there' but expects to take you with them.  I think that you get my point.

We are in a strange but wonderful industry. It's the ride of a lifetime...but it shouldn't be your only ride.  Please spare a thought this Christmas for people suffering with mental health issues...as it's a time known to make things feel worse.  The world can be happy...yet you can be so low.
Catching a Mental Health illness early on means that potentially you could make a great difference to the rest of a life.  Wouldn't it be wonderful if theatre, with all our eccentricities led the way in this field?

So my Christmas wish this year is simple...to all of you that are out there suffering from depression, anxiety disorders, personality disorders, eating disorders etc, all of you that have contacted me to confirm my belief that we haven't got this right yet...please just retweet this blog...and then ask your college pastoral team to come to our conference. We already have confirmation from Equity YMC, The Stage and Spotlight that they'll be coming, and the pastoral lead from one other Drama UK college will be in attendance...so let's be getting the rest of you talking shall we?

If this is just 'digital wallpaper' then please print it off and use it...as actually none of us know who will be next . . . and you know what. . . it might even be you!
Merry Christmas one and all and a happy and HEALTHY(job filled) 2016