Tuesday 14 July 2026, Asylum discussion group

Tuesday 9th June 2026, Coercion and compulsion in mental health practice – decolonising education through Multicultural Perspectives, discussion led by Che McGarvey-Gill

Tuesday 12th May 2026, Take These Broken Wings

Tuesday 14th April 2026, Dr Dave Barton discussed the experiences of some of the participants in his recently completed Professional Doctorate

Tuesday 17th March 2026, Hot Air: Spaces for dialogue in mental health.

Tuesday 10 February 2026, Gregson Centre, Social and planning evening.

Tuesday 13 January 2026, Gregson Centre. Film Screening: Poppy Shakespeare

Tuesday 9th December 2025, Gregson Centre. A Madzine Advent Calendar

Tuesday 11th November 2025, 7-9pm, Olive Bar, Gregson Community & Arts Centre

Models of Mental Capacity with Clare Brown from Lancaster University 

What does it mean to be able to make a decision? Is it ever okay to overrule someone’s wishes for their care or treatment? If so, when and why?

Monday 1 September2025, 7-9pm The Gregson Community & Arts Centre

David Gott, from Lancaster University talked about his PhD research. into the philosophy of harm and well-being, and how ideas of what it means to “have a good life” underpin the concept of mental illness.

Wednesday 2nd July 2025, 7-9pm, Lancaster University, LICA A05

Discussion of Surveillance in Psychiatric Treatment Settings plus general planning meeting.

Wednesday 11th June 2025, 7-9pm, Friends Meeting House

Presentation by Feixia Yu from Uclan about Chinese approaches to mental health.

14 May 2018 – Take these Broken Wings screening, Gregson Centre

15 March 2018 – CCrAMHP planning meeting, Gregson Centre

22 February 2018 – Trip to see the Almighty Sometimes, Royal Exchange, Manchester.

9 February 2018 – CCrAMHP planning meeting, Gregson Centre

11 August 2017 – Nature and Wellbeing + picnic at Fork2Fork

28 June 2017 – Trip to Asylum Action and Reaction conference in Manchester.

12 June 2017 – Met at the Gregson centre then went to see MAD TO BE NORMAL at the Dukes.

3 March 2017 – CCrAMHP planning meeting at the Merchants, Lancaster.

11 February 2017 – Visit to Lancaster museum to hear Natalie Mullen‘s talk on ‘patient experiences in Lancashire county asylum’.

21 January 2017 –  Breakfast at the Whaletail, followed by a visit to ‘Left Behind: Capturing the Moor Hospital’ – an exhibition by local photographer Nick Dagger, showcasing Lancaster’s abandoned 19th Century psychiatric hospital, the first asylum in Lancashire. Further details.

25 October 2016 at Lancaster University.  LISTENING TO VOICE HEARERS: featuring Kate Crawford, Bob Green & Shaun Hunt, all of whom have heard voices for most of their lives.

23 August 2016 – Informal summer get together at the Gregson Centre, to say goodbye to Tamasin who is moving to Dundee.

28 July 2016 – Mark Love, from Guild Lodge in Preston shared his experience of using art as a therapeutic tool within secure psychiatric services and in working with people with acquired brain injury.

30 June 2016 – Paradoxes in caring for a loved one with an eating disorder.  Eva Musby joined us for a discussion.  Flyer.

19 May 2016 – What’s changed/is changing in mental health: hopes and fears for the future.  A celebration of CCrAMHP’s fifth birthday.   Flyer.

13 April 2016 – Critical and Creative Approaches to Postnatal Mental Health.  

22 March 2016 – Open Meeting on Open Dialogue, Lancaster Library

15 January 2016: CCrAMHP planning session at 1725

Monday 30 November 2015: Only Us.  We discussed the ideas behind the Only Us campaign, using a brief paper circulated by Bob Sapey as a starting point.

Monday 26 October 2015: Pumpkin Carving for Wellbeing

Monday 28 September 2015 – Development and dissemination of the Hearing Voices App – with Tamasin Knight

Monday 27 July 2015  – CCrAMHP picnic and walk

Monday 29 June 2015 – Carol Thomas and Jane Simpson from the Institute for Health Research at Lancaster University.  Meeting postponed.

Tuesday 16 June 2015 – Madness, Distress and the Politics of Disablement.  Book Launch.  See HERE for further details.

27 May 2015 – John Lockhart  from the Freire Institute joined us to talk about Critical Pedagogy.

27 April 2015 – Dawn Whitaker, a lecturer at  Lancaster University and an Independent Social Work specializing in human rights, led a discussion on the tensions between mental health, mental capacity and human rights law in the UK, especially in respect of torture and the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities.

30 March 2015 – this meeting (with Dawn Whitaker) was postponed to April.

23 February 2015 – Woolly ideas and mental wellbeing – How can knitting, crochet and other craft activities support wellbeing? How do they link to activism?

FLYER:  ccramhp flyer – feb 2015 – woolly ideas and wellbeing – final

29 January 2015 – John Lockhart was unable to join us due to the weather (to be rearranged).  We had a wide ranging information sharing session instead.

18 December 2014 – CCrAMHP Christmas meal at the Gregson Centre.

24 November 2014 – Steven Edwards, Using patient, service user and carer narratives to improve mental health care.

27 October 2014 – Mick McKeown, from UCLAN, on opening up spaces for communication.

22 September 2014: Gloria Wright, author of the Medicalization trap, on Families of boys diagnosed with ADHD

28 July 2014: Trip to the Woodlands in Silverdale, 4pm onwards.

30 June 2014: Bookclub discussion – The Boy with the Topknot by Sathnam Sanghera

26 May 2014: ‘The Arbor‘ – film.  This meeting took place at the Gregson Centre

9 May Trip to the Furiously Mad exhibition at the People’s History Museum in Manchester. Meet in the Cafe at the exhibition at 1pm.

28 April 2014 – Jill Anderson started a discussion about reading and mental wellbeing, linked to World Book Night (we had copies of the Boy with the Topknot to give away).

31 March 2014 – Neil Caton, Service User Development Worker, Lancashire Care: Closing the Door: The impact of labelling on the experience of distress.

27 January 2014 – New year networking meeting.

4 December 2013, Merchants pub: CCrAMHP planning meeting (to review suggestions for future meetings)

25 November 2013: Tamasin Knight spoke about her recent Churchill Fellowship trip to the US. Read her blog here.

28 October 2013: Open Dialogue – Showing of the film by Daniel Mackler at Lancaster University (Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Room 2).  See here for details.

30 September 2013: CCrAMHP networking session: what we do to support our own wellbeing.

24 August  2013. CCrAMHP – Allotment visit and picnic. A visit to Christina’s allotment on Dorrington Road was followed by a picnic at Williamson Park.  This built on recent discussion about how ideas discussed at CCrAMHP might be translated in to action.

29 July 2013.  Liz Pitt talked about her personal experience of working as a service user researcher at Greater Manchester West Mental Health Trust and her involvement in the Recovery from Psychosis Research Programme.  Liz circulated a paper: A Service User Perspective on Psychosis Research

24 June 2013.  Paul ChanDelaney, an AMHP and social worker, is interested in human rights and the use of power. Paul focused on raising awareness of the use of power in mental health services through discussion of some key articles under the European Convention on Human Rights.

20 May 2013. Clive Parkinson: Arts for Health North West

29 April 2013. Psychiatry beyond the current paradigm: Nav Cchina.  Nav’s input was postponed – we held a networking session instead.

25 March 2013. A wellbeing partnership: Lionel Rice

25 February 2013. Connecting People: Martin Webber

28 January 2013.  Networking meeting

26 November 2012 – Joseph Atukunda discussed his work in setting up a peer support network called Heartsounds, in Uganda.

29 October 2012 – Brendan Stone spoke about his work with Storying Sheffield.

24 September 2012 – Linda Piggott from Lancaster University, talked about the impact of the cuts on voluntary organisations in Lancaster.

27 August 2012 – Film Evening The doctor who hears voices.

30 July 2012 – Tamasin Knight spoke about her book – Beyond Belief.

25th April 2012 – Bob Sapey spoke about a recent paper he had written, Compounding the Trauma: the coercive treatment of voice hearers and Jill Anderson fed back on a national roundtable event on wellbeing and social work.

28 March 2012 – Review meeting Review of CCrAMHP meetings to date + ideas for future meetings.

1 February 2012 – Joanna Moncrieff spoke about her book – The Myth of the Chemical Cure. Afterwards a seminar was held at Lancaster University.

30 November 2011 – Tony Sparkes talked about his PhD work on recovery. See (p34).

8 September 2011 – Angela Nagorski spoke about her work with Growing Matters.

27 July 2011 – Alison Summers introduced the work of the International Society for Psychological and Social Approaches to Psychosis (ISPS)

1 June 2011 – Bob Sapey shared a reading list on voice hearing and Alan Beattie spoke about his interest in survivor poetry and metaphors of mobility.

28 April 2011 – Film Evening Take these broken wings.

23 March 2011 – Inaugural meeting. Helen Spandler spoke about the work of the Soteria Network.