The Disability Information and Resource Centre

Humour really is the best medicine, which is why you should experience it for yourself in the upcoming fringe show ‘Cracking Up’. The show features people who have experienced mental health conditions sharing their stories and struggles through standup comedy. The show is based on the Canadian documentary ‘Cracking Up’ and was originally developed by David Granirer, a mental health support worker and comedian. Following this the MHCSA with funding from Arts SA have developed the highly inspiring and hilarious live show of ‘Cracking Up’. David Granirer states, “We use comedy to give consumers a powerful voice and help reduce the stigma and discrimination around mental illness”.

According to the ‘Cracking Up” team, “If you can laugh at yourself then it is the show for you… and if you can’t laugh at yourself then you definitely have to see ‘Cracking Up’”. First hand communication with someone who has experienced a mental health problem is known to be a highly effective method of influencing the way people think and subsequently reducing stigma. This is truly what the show accomplishes although you will be so busy laughing you won’t know it.

The idea around ‘Cracking Up’ is to laugh at the setbacks and consequently rise above them says Granirer. It has been internationally proven that laughter has both physiological and psychological benefits including helping to relieve fear and reduce stress.

As a result of having fallen through the cracks that present through various mental health conditions, the ‘Cracking Up’ team of stand up comedians will take over the stage to tickle your funny bones with their witty, bold, reflective and amusing stories.

Filled with a diverse range of comedians with different stories to share the ‘Cracking Up’ team invite you to laugh out loud with them and appeal to your comedian within. Come rally at the Box Factory in an intimate easy to find venue where you can bring your funny bones, your laughter and your smiles and continue to prove that laughter really can be the best form of medicine.

Featuring: Helen Keene, Abner Bradley, Kathryn Hall, Ceridwyn Owen, Sharon Cheney, Kim McKenzie, Donna Schilwa, Kylie Harrison and the vocal talents of Vocal Lunacy.

Location: The Box Factory – 59 Regent Street South, Adelaide SA 5000

Dates: 25, 26, 27 February 2011

Times: 8.30pm to 9.45pm (1 hour 15 mins)

Costs: $10 each – Carers Free

Tickets available at FRINGETIX 1300 374 643 www.adelaidefringe.com.au

Further enquiries to MHCSA: Ph: 8212 8873 or 0406 980 962
Email: openyourmind@mhcsa.org.au Web: www.mhcsa.org.au.

The Cracking Up! flyer.

This survey, undertaken by the Mental Health Council of Australia, of over 750 Carers of people with mental illness across Australia, released 25 November 2010, highlights the challenges and obstacles they face. The survey can be viewed at www.mhca.org.au.

What is Stress Less in the Workforce Mental Health Project about?

Stress less in the workforce is a project designed for Australian businesses to engage in during Mental Health Week 10-16 Oct 2010. This program has been created in order to reduce work related stress within Australian business and the Mental Health Coalition is registering interested businesses in the program. Working groups will participate in creating awareness about mental health problems in the workforce during the month of October.

Why?

Stress related presenteeism and absenteeism is costing the Australian economy nearly $15 Billion a year.*

* Information from “The Cost of Workplace Stress, August 2008, MediBank Private”

The cost of untreated depression to an organisation is $647,000 per 1000 employees per year *.

* Assessing the financial return on investment of good management strategies and the WORC Project Michael Hilton, The University of Queensland and The Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research At Psychological Injury and Stress in the Workplace Conference, 10 – 12 April 2006, Sydney

In the next 12 months, 1 in 5 of us will experience a mental health problem. Let’s work together to reduce the stigma and discrimination. What you do can make the difference *.

* Information from “the MHW Poster 2010”

How?

By creating and implementing stress reducing strategies.

By creating activities and events for staff participation.

What can we do in order to help you to reduce stress at your workplace during Mental Health Week in the month of October?

Provide free information packs for employers and employees

Free Massage provided by the Adelaide’s TAFE students (No of spaces limited)

Walk for Mental Health Week 15th Oct 2010 10am to 2pm (River Torrens location)

Vouchers for first lesson free at Jim Fung’s International Wing Chun Academy (Kung-Fu)

Free talks for Organisations by Centacare’s ACCESS Programs. The Access program is a provider of workplace counselling, training and consultancy services to over 200 companies throughout South Australia. ACCESS consultants are available to organisations who have an interest mental wellbeing in the workplace throughout Mental Health Week.

As part of Mental Health Week 2010 the Mental Health Coalition of SA (MHCSA) in partnership with the Mental Illness Fellowship of SA (MIFSA) will be holding a walk around the River Torrens. Participating Walkers will be able to walk around the Torrens visiting Life Style Stops on Wellness, Being Active, Eating Right, Thinking Well, Deep Sleep and Experiencing Nature.

Registrations from interested parties wishing to have a stall at the Being Healthy Village in Elder Park are now open. The village will feature information stalls & activities for young and old. Walkers register at this location before following the Mental Health Week Trail. Upon completion walkers receive a certificate acknowledging their commitment to their own health and well being.

If your organisation would like to take part in this event by registering or you require more information please contact the MHCSA. Your organisation may also like to participate in activities at the life style stops which occur on the MHW Trail. Walkers need to attend the site between 10am and 2pm to participate in the Life Style Stops and receive their certificate.

Walk date: 15th of October 2010

Time: 10am to 2pm

Closing Date for Organisations to Register: 31st August, 2010

Please view the flyer for this event, and the registration form.

Further Information

Tracey Davis, Mental Health Week Coordinator
Ph: 8212 8873
Email: tracey.davis@mhcsa.org.au

The Mental Health Coalition of South Australia are looking for images for a range of posters to be displayed in the community during Mental Health Week, 10-16th October 2010.

Images need to be 3 or more people and focus on one of the following categories:

• Children
• Teens
• Young Adults
• Parents
• Men
• Women
• Seniors
• Celebrating Sexuality
• Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders
• Multicultural
• Workforce blue and white collar
• Rural
• Cald
• Seniors

Each person in the image needs to have filled in a photographic release form for the entry to be valid.

Entrants will also need to complete this entry form.

Entries close 23rd July 2010.

More Information

Tracey Davis, Mental Health Coalition
Ph: 8212 8873
Email: tracey.davis@mhcsa.org.au
1/408 King William Road, Adelaide SA 5009

Experience this dynamic, humourous and insightful new work that looks at madness and creativity through the eyes of a psychiatrist, his patient and his frustrated artist wife.
Following the performance the writer, Nina Pearce,  invites you to share and discuss your thoughts on the work and the issues relating to mental illness within the piece.

Where: SA Writer’s Centre 2nd Floor, 187 Rundle Street, Adelaide SA 5000

When:   Sunday 4th Oct at 3pm & 6:30pm  & Friday 9th Oct at 7:30pm

Cost:     $10 general admission;  $5 unemployed

In my final year of drama school in 2005 I experienced a manic episode that resulted in a month of paranoia, psychosis and delusions. I was told I was bipolar, a diagnosis that was soon retracted after subsequent assessment.

My first play ‘This Place’ is my way of looking at what goes on in the mind of someone who is experiencing a manic episode and comparing it to the experience of a tempestuous artist who is trying to make sense of the world around her. Eliza, the patient, believes she is creating headlines telepathically in the newspaper. She feels overwhelming responsibility for the plight of the world. Olivia, the artist, is fed up with hearing about the world’s repetitive problems. The growing sense of impending doom is sapping her creativity. Gareth, Olivia’s husband and Eliza’s psychiatrist, doesn’t let such things phase him. His happy theory is to ignore the front page and do the crossword instead. Like many of us, it’s important to find distractions in a world that seems to be going more and more insane as time goes on.

Since then I have been taking mood stabilising medication and have been fortunate enough not to have had another episode since. My sister had a similar ‘one off’ episode in her early twenties, and we both remember much of what being inside psychosis was like. I remember why I thought certain things, why I did the bizarre things that I did and I remember that while much of it was frightening and tragic, much of it was also quite fun and enlightening for me and even for those around me. After the experience I became hyper-aware of just how prevalent mental illness is in the community and how little is understood about it by those not affected by it.

As part of Mental Health Week this year, five.point.one present the latest draft of  ‘This Place’ at the SA Writer’s Centre, directed by Corey Mcmahon, and performed by Craig Behenna, Tamara Lee and myself. I really urge anyone interested in these ideas, in new writing and in our collective experience with mental illness to come to the performance and participate in a Q and A session afterwards. I’m eager to have feedback from the community. Your input would be invaluable to the development of the play. Hope to see you there.

Nina Pearce.

www.arts.sa.gov.au

www.mhcsa.org.au/

www.sawriters.on.net