Paddy McGowan's Tidal Perspective

The Irish Advocacy Network (www.irishadvocacynetwork.com) exists to promote and facilitate Peer Advocacy on an island-wide basis. This is achieved through the provision of Information and Support for Mental Health service Users and/or Survivors. We aim to support people in speaking up for themselves and in achieving empowerment by taking control of their own lives. The Network is made up of a management committee, staff and volunteers.

The Irish Advocacy Network (IAN) was formed from the first user run user led conference in Derry in November of 1999, a three day conference that was organized by Mind Yourself Derry, an Associated Group of the Irish Advocacy Network. The conference, themed “VOICES”, gave service users a collective voice for the first time and the Irish Advocacy Network was formed.

IAN works within a broad range of mental health service provision contexts and has carried out a number of service audits for various Health Boards in the Irish Republic to assess current service provision satisfaction, treatment models and methodologies and the systemic barriers to well being and recovery.

IAN would want to endorse the work that Phil Barker and Poppy Buchanan-Barker are doing in developing the Tidal Model of Recovery. From a service user perspective it espouses a humanistic ethos based on the principal of caring ‘with’ rather than ‘for’ the individual. It aims to see the person as a person and not as a clinical set of symptoms that need to be treated or fixed

We believe the Tidal Model is unique in that it offers a framework of care based on assessment and care criteria which are person-centred, where the person's life story provides the focus and fulcrum for recovery, based on real needs and ownership of the recovery process.

The simplicity of the Tidal Model, as an approach to people who are experiencing mental and emotional distress, invites health care professionals to take a humbler approach to the people in their care. In the Network we believe that empowerment is the first step to recovery. The only thing professionals can do is to create the conditions and environment for empowerment. The Tidal Model offers such a methodology as to how these conditions and environment can be created.

In his most recent report (2002) Dr Dermot Walsh, the Inspector of Mental Hospitals, states; “It is increasingly important that consumers be involved both in the planning and delivery of services.” As a consumer led organisation, IAN is offering to promote the Tidal Model and are offering you and your colleagues any assistance we can give to encourage service managers to take the risk and implement the Model.

I want to wish Phil and Poppy continued success in their work and look forward to collaborating   more and more to provide the standards of care that reflect the needs of the 21^st century.