Making our own Decisions: Sharing Stories & Creating Change

Date: 22nd November 2017

Venue: Institute for Lifecourse and Society, NUI Galway

You can view a programme for the event here.

The project’s final workshop combined the four core themes of the project – criminal responsibility, contractual capacity, consent to treatment and consent to sex – and featured a mix of personal narratives, art and theoretical perspectives based on the UNCRPD.

On the private day (the 21st November) the storytellers, respondents, and advisory board and steering group members worked together to finalise the chapters for the edited collection which will be published by Routledge in late 2018.

On the 22nd we held a conference style event which was open to the public. Here all 15 storyteller and respondent pairs from 12 different countries had the opportunity to share their experiences of the project and provide previews of their chapters in parallel sessions. We also encouraged attendees to contribute their views by drawing or writing on the art wall (pictured above) or recording a message in our sound booth.

 

The keynote speaker for the event was Dr. Michael Bach, Managing Director of the Institute for Research and Development on Inclusion and Society. His presentation was titled “Sharing Voices Others Don’t Hear: When Support Calls for Interpretation”.

 

 

Olga Runciman also shared her personal experience and perspective as the only psychologist in private practice in Denmark to specialise in extreme states. She is a co-founder of the Danish Hearing Voices network and the new International Institute for Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal.

 

 

We were delighted to be joined by Hatiye Garip an illustrator and designer for both days. Hatiye sketched each of the pairs and provided wonderful illustrations of the project’s progress.

---

Pictures from the event are available here.

Videos of both the plenary and parallel sessions are available here.

---