The Critical AMHP is one-year-old!
Close-up Photography of Pink Birthday Cake · Free Stock Photo (pexels.com) by Mohammad Danish
By The Critical AMHP Team
The start
We have reached our first birthday and it feels good! This time last year we were frantically putting the finishing touches not only to the initial four blogs but to the website itself to make sure it looked the part as well as read the part. We were all new to this type of project and it was a bit of a leap of faith. How would it land and where would it take us? We didn’t really know but we wanted to find out.
What we did know is that we had set out on this journey with the intention of creating ‘a forum for us to examine, celebrate and contest what motivates us and what holds us back in the work we do … [It was to be a] place where we can connect with our professional standards, with new ideas, and with each other in all our humanity and diversity … The Critical AMHP seeks to capture and learn from multiple, diverse voices’. A lofty aim perhaps, so now seems as good a time as any, at this first anniversary, to reflect on whether or not we have met this goal, whether we can go further and to think about new areas for these reflections.
First of all, although we had ambitions for The Critical AMHP, no team members quite expected it to take off in the way that it did. Almost from day one the site seemed to fill a gap or maybe create a new space. Over the past twelve months, the site has received over 9,000 visits, with over 6,000 deemed as unique visitors. In other words, it is not just the same four or five people (such as us in The Critical AMHP Team!) clicking on the site all of the time. We have published twenty-one different blogs by eighteen different authors with diverse backgrounds from AMHP team leads to newly qualified AMHPs, to those with Lived Experience of receiving AMHP Services to those primarily based in AMHP education and research. Many blogs explore in detail AMHPs’ experiences of the practical, ethical and relational parts of the role all of which we hope will support practice expertise, critical reflection and simply managing difficult experiences for all involved. Ultimately, we can clearly see that people want to hear these voices and that is why we get on average close to 500 unique visitors to the site every month.
The blogs
All the published blogs have generated interest and engagement and so we would like to use this opportunity to say a really big thank you for all those who have stuck their hand up and stuck their head above the parapet to contribute to The Critical AMHP.
As a multi-author site, it really does belong to all of us and is only as good and as relevant as the writing contributions. If you would like to get something down on paper that captures your experience or ideas about any aspect of approved mental health practice or related areas, we would really encourage you to get in touch. Email us at the-critical-amhp@googlegroups.com and remember you do not need to be a polished writer to share your thoughts and experiences on The Critical AMHP! We are very happy to help with editing or just sending encouragement (including meeting deadlines for those, like us, who need it)!
One of the blogs was also extended to a well-received lunchtime ‘Bringing the Blogs to Life’ webinar. This was John Mitchell’s ‘An AMHP’s Journey through s13(1) MHA’. It seemed to speak to the need, felt by many AMHPs and AMHP services, to re-imagine the possibilities available to us in the way in which we respond to what can often seem like an overwhelming stream of referrals. This blog has thus far received over two thousand views and whilst this quantitative data is helpful to have, it is the qualitative impact of the writing which is ultimately more important but, of course, trickier to capture. Yet we know from conversations we have overheard amongst experienced and trainee AMHPs alike that s13(1) has entered the lexicon in a way that wasn’t there before. Likewise, we have heard about blogs being used in AMHP forums and reflective practice groups, in AMHP supervision, in teaching sessions with trainees and even in recruitment interviews to draw out the candidates’ criticality and ability to reflect. We are so proud to hear the website has had this impact.
It is fantastic to hear this as it has been a labour of love for us at The Critical AMHP, which is a side project in more ways than one. It had been over eighteen months in the planning, squeezing in MS Teams meetings right at the end of the day job, past 5pm (when often all you want to do is to press the off-button on the laptop, open a bottle of beer or put the kettle on), to work out what it was exactly that we wanted to do and how we were going to do it. At various points it felt like it might never get off the ground – would we acquire the funding, would we get enough contributors, would we have the time and skill to build and maintain the site and would there be enough interest? These are questions and doubts which are still lurking around in the background to keep us on our toes, but we have gained confidence and have been given a lot of encouragement and support.
The future
One of the key areas we have recently been working on behind the scenes is securing the future of the site for another year and beyond and this means we need donations. Fortunately we don’t have particularly big costs – the main one is the cost of the website provider and the domain name. We owe a debt of gratitude to the AMHP Leads Network for stumping up the cash for this up until now but we hope that we can soon stand on our own two feet and will need to do so by January 2024. We will spare you the boring details (business accounts, treasurers etc) but essentially, we hope that the ‘Donation’ button on the landing page of the site will be up and running very soon.
If you value what The Critical AMHP offers and would like to see it thrive and develop as a resource for all those interested in improving practice and outcomes at the interface of the Mental Health Act, please do consider giving the cost of a coffee or more if you can afford it. We will put something on our ‘X formerly Twitter’ feed and on the website when this is ready to receive donations.
Next on our to-do list is to activate the subscription function on the website – we have noted, with thanks, that hundreds of people have subscribed to the site but we have not yet developed a system whereby subscribers automatically receive news and updates from the site. This functionality comes with additional website costs which we may or may not be able to fund in the not-too-distant future.
As part of fundraising, getting a bank account, and future development, we are holding an Annual General Meeting soon to include anyone who has subscribed. If you do want to attend then please do subscribe via the website. This meeting will be agreeing our constitution and discussing how to get involved. Holding our first AGM will be a great milestone moment for the site and those who run it and we look forward to inviting you.
We welcome new ideas and suggestions for the site including the issues and subject matters you would like to see covered in the blogs. Please do send us your thoughts on where and how we can do better – we know we are a work-in-progress!
Once again, we send our thanks and warm wishes, and ask you to keep on reading and writing ✍ 😊
Rob, Jill, Lou, Kev and Alan – The Critical AMHP Team