The Green Green Grass of Home

national | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis Friday November 23, 2007 20:23 by Sean Crudden - impero sean at impero dot iol dot ie Jenkinstown, Dundalk, Co Louth. 087 9739945

Mental Health & Social Inclusion

Mental health policy has changed? Hospitals have been run down and patients are being treated in the community. But the basic methodology remains the same. The treatment patients receive is no different. Perhaps patients have become even more isolated, unsupported?

As I lay in bed last Tuesday morning my wife had to open the door for the postman. The reason for this is that he was delivering a "letter" which was far too big to fit through the letter-box. It contained a heavy 226 page tome. The pages are A4 size and covered mainly, except for a few diagrams, in rather fine print. The title of the document is "Mental Health & Social Inclusion." It is dated October 2007 and the front page tells us that it is Report 36 produced by the National Economic and Social Forum (NESF).

Everyone is aware of anomie, disengagement, anti-social behaviour, alcoholism in our streets and communities. The general idea now is that community development and social networking will create that feel-good factor and an improved atmosphere which will help to keep us busy, happy, healthy.

There is political muscle, too, behind this kind of initiative. For instance, I listened to Mary Davis speaking at the CO3 annual conference today in The Canal Court Hotel in Newry. She is heading up a board and an office in Dublin which, over the next three years, will oversee the implementation of the recommendations of The Report of The Taskforce on Active Citizenship. That board will report directly to The Taoiseach.

Personally, I hope that the well-springs of human motivation and creativity will not be dried up by bureaucracy and competition for handouts. There is already a lot in the community and voluntary sector which has to do with optics and window-dressing. And, perhaps, the element of conviction and mission in community and voluntary activity has become diluted and pushed down the order of priority.

I recollect sitting terrified through a production of "The Crucible" in Dundalk Town hall over a decade ago: and although I remember little else about it I recall the title of Brinsley McNamara’s book which I read in the 1960’s - "The Valley of The Squinting Windows." What those memories inspire in my mind is the thought that all is not sweetness and light. Can communities be dark and malevolent?

It appears to me that the established pillars of the community - education, policing, psychiatry - are threatening and undemocratic institutions which are antithetical to true community development. The fundamental question is, "Can there be community development?" or perhaps, more optimistically, "Where do we start?"