COPMI (Children of Parents with a Mental Illness) Capacity Building "Stories from the Real World"

Title: Developing a Comic Book Resource

Activity:  Resource Allocation (e.g. establishment of 'copmi' positions, increasing availability of information for consumers, 'family friendly')

Keywords:  consumer based/ young people/ comic book format

Name:  Moira McGuirer

Organisation:  South Eastern Sydney & Illawarra Area Health Service

Address:  Sylvania Community Health Centre: 29 Sylvania Rd

Suburb:  Sylvania

Postcode:  2224

Email:  McGuirem@ sesahs.nsw.gov.au

Phone:  02 9522 1002

About :The production of a comic book about the experiences of young people living in families affected by mental illness with an information
section at the back re mental illness signs and support services

Commencement Date:  July-2004

Completion Date:  November-2004

Location:  In a metropolitan region

To do:  Strengthen consumer/carer participation

Target Group:  young people aged 12-16

Who was involved:  I worked in partnership with Hazelhurst Community Art Gallery/ and Streetwize Communications and we were assisted also by another service-Reconnect.

What we did:  Hazelhurst provided the training venue and the funding to employ Streetwize Communications. I came up with the concept, recruited the participants and liaised with the families. I also co-faciliteated the classes. Streetwize did all the art work and ran the classes over a ten week period. Streetwize also did surveys of the product with their reference groups.
The young people came up with the characters, who they were , what they looked like and what their home situations were. The young people also came up with the title of the resource - "Something on my mind". I wrote the information section at the back. Streetwize provided the cover theme for the comic - a group of young people coming together to produce a comic book - they also contributed to the information section at the back and did all of the art work. Another service, reconnect, provided a worker who ran the stress release play activities.

What we found:  The project was very demanding as the kids acted out in class - the content triggered this behaviour. They needed frequent play breaks. They also needed a lot of supervision. Many of the young people had to be given a lift home as parents were unable to pick them up. This put a lot of demand on myself as the main escort.

The kids were seen to become more able to discuss their family situations and they were able to take the rough drafts of the comic to school to show other kids, indicating a major perception shift. Previously had been very concerned about stigma issues. All of the kids reported that it was a good thing to have a group of other kids to talk to about their family situations. All of the kids reported the experience as being validating and supportive for them personally. Their families were also very supportive of the project.

some of the kids were comforatable in speaking publically about the project-thre has been a recent story about the project in the local newspaper with photos of some of the group.

What worked well:  The kids came together well and as a result we were able to form an ongoing peer support group after the comic book was completed. This is called THE LEGENDS. This project demondstrated that it is possible to form peer support groups for young people by having an interesting project.

The comic book is now being distributed nation wide. The young people recently received the Youth Committment award as part of Childrens Week in NSW

What didn't work so well :It was a challenge keeping the kids under control- also working with the other services - different value systems and expectations - some very stressful periods.

What others can learn from our work: If you are wanting to set up a peer support group for adolescents, it is useful to kickstart the group with an interesteing project as kids do not like attending psycho education groups.

What form or evaluation did you do?: We used community focus groups to review the comic book stories and the information section.

Where to from here:  The Legends is now an ongoing group and several services are working in partnership to run this. The next project will be a video.

People to acknowledge/thank: Sutherland Shire Council's community art gallery program-Hazelhurst, Streetwize Communications Inc,
Reconnect Service, Sutherland/ NSW Health.

Date Submitted:  Nov 8, 2005 11:16:12 AM

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