I'm Ben Wyke, I'm a senior lecturer in Social Work at the University of Derby.
The project is connected with a module I've been teaching for a few
years now called the Mental Health Module, it's a Year 2 module in Social
Work and one of the challenges has been to make mental health legislation come
alive it's important the students understand the mental health legislation.
Over the years I've used a scenario, written scenario for that, but the
thought was to bring this alive in using video and having roles played by actors
actually working through the scenario of a life of an individual who becomes
unwell with a mental disorder and then has to go through the hospital and
treatment system and how the law applies to him in that process.
My name is Becky Reynard and I'm a Social Work student studying at Derby University.
The video has really helped me because if I had had to just read about how mental
disorder impact on individual and the legislation that applies for them to be
detained in hospital, depending on their circumstances, I would have struggle to
understand it from just reading from a textbook or say I got dyslexia and that
affects my understanding of reading textbooks most of the time. So I'm more
like a person that watch a video on the topic because it stays in my head
compared to when I read it in the book.
I hope it helps them bring to life the the
law itself, law can be very dry and abstract really, to when you're thinking
about it it brings a real, seems to be real individual into the process for
them. It's difficult to actually follow the life and experience of someone who
is actually experiencing a mental health problem, so hopefully this is the the
nearest thing to it.
What I like about the video is how it portraits the
feeling and wishes of the individual involved, in this case Jeremy. He had
mental health disorder and it has enlighten my knowledge about the emotions that is
behind that fear of been detained in hospital.
I think the portrayal of the experience of a detention in hospital for someone
who is both mentally unwell at the time but also experiencing the loss of
freedom and the loss of maybe some rights. Personal freedom was
really strong and that how that came across from the the the acting which
took place I think would have made that more real for the students, enable them
to maybe understand and even empathize with a person in that position. I was
surprised at how it brought to life something which was just a scenario in my
head or on paper the ability to then transform that into to real people and
and capture the environment through film was very very strong added
layers I think of understanding to the scenario. I think there's scope for again
bringing something which is quite dry the law maybe and statuary law
to life by applying rules to a video to a real-life situation
would be very strong. The other thing that was good was was seeing
professionals in action and being able to relate to understanding some of
the challenges of carrying out an assessment of interviewing and
understanding the process which was was was taking place there and hopefully
that was another aspect of learning so there was understanding the law but also
applying it to the process of carrying out an assessment for someone's
detention under the Mental Health Act.
I think with a video and like someone like
me with you know dyslexia, I think it would be very helpful to that people out
there even people who haven't got dyslexia and because like when I
watch something on TV or on a video I remember it easily for years, but when I
read something from a text books I easily forget within a week I have to go
back and read it again but where it is with video is just stay with me maybe for the
rest of my life.