Review Time
Re: Bill Dury's "Write Away" Creativity course. It's plugged by MIND and the Stuart Low Trust: so you'll gather it's aimed at what we are supposed to call, 'Survivors of the Mental Health System'. Naturally, then, it's a course which "can seriously damage your health" - as they used to warn us of Woodbine fags. Above all, if you're one of the vulnerable people for whom it was set up in the first place.I'm a sometime-professional author: retired with worsening agoraphobia, C-PTSD, Polyvagal Dysfunction, Writer's Block and impaired eyesight. I turn up for Write Away only because Bill Dury has told me, "You're a genius. And you make people so happy".Not any more, it seems. As the weeks since go by, what was done to me in May at Despard Road comes to replay in my mind like a reverberating, bad, if not unbelievable dream. Only, it did happen. And what response has there been from Mr Dury, as the weeks have ticked away? Not so much as a whimper.Bill Dury's manner is affable and welcoming. He's required to do little except to encourage punters to tell their life-stories, and this he does with easy charm. That his own poetry seems no better than homespun is neither here nor there. The subject matter he chooses - hope, loneliness - might seem platitudinous, but it is no doubt appropriate (emollient, rather) for today's huddle of a mysteriously isolated and frightened audience.You get the picture. As vicars used to say, faced with yet another cup of their parishioners' tea, "It's warm and wet'. Yet there seems to be a significant disparity in the way in which different punters are treated. Some are chivvied or prompted or held in check on the slightest pretext: others (apparently known to Bill from cliques outside) have carte blanche: they can get with anything they like - a cynic might gather?Because I no longer write, I can't offer anything penned at this afternoon's session. Instead, I bring in two pieces from a book I created long ago and which had found praise in the United States - and promptly, I find myself hauled over the coals for my hideous faux-pas.The afternoon's public censure begins with a display of sullen resentment from a shrivelled, encysted old gentleman who can't even look me in the eye. Geriatric spite, emanating from wonky knees? A species of desiccated jealousy at the sound of published work, unleashed with the loss of another bumper crop of yellowing teeth? Such is my support worker's verdict but in the end, who cares? All I've tried is to be affable. Almost to a fault. Dear God, I've bust a gut trying to be affable.Still wearing my Happy Hour mask but now in a state of major threat and anxiety, I begin fiddling with my phone. So there's a verbal rap over the knuckles for me from Billy the Kid (how old is he?) And next, two of old Mr Canker's cronies join in their dead vultures' frenzy. I try to keep up my smile only by now, it's an onslaught. Bill, ashen faced and bewildered, can only waddle from one foot to another and blub like a baby about "spreading love". Yeah, that and the flying pigs.This was a moment when the chutzpah of Billy's fabled Dad would not have come amiss. "Reasons to be cheerful", hadn't Ian once sung? So, what happened to today's opening kindergarten homily about "respect"? This was a shocking experience, traumatic, unmerited and grotesque: overt bullying or a kind of verbal assault, I suppose; although not, from previous observations of this merry band of cohorts, entirely unexpected. One's told that pretty young women get the red carpet treatment, before perhaps they abscond of their own accord. Now, how should I know?Just one thing. I'd been teacher-trained in Liverpool 8 during the Toxteth Riots; and today is led by a mentor who has not a clue what he is up to, either as a teacher of groups or as an enabler for grown-ups. That much I can vouch for. Finally, in my flustered state after I've fled this debacle, I get trapped in the Disability lift.The signage at 48 Despard Road is outstandingly poor and this satellite of MIND is barely known to Google maps. Worth packing your compass and crampons for the journey? Don't even think about it. By the way: a few months later I was asked to read the same poem at a Writers' Forum. I was cheered.
As long as you are bobbing along Mind are ok but when the wheels come off or you have a complaint their true colours are shown.The managers cover for poor staff and talk down to you, a 35 year old talking down to a 63 year old, rude, disrespectful and arrogant
I phoned their legal line, once in the past I had good advice from it. This time they entirely avoided answering my questions at all and clearly supported the need for a CTO despite supposedly knowing nothing about me. Their goal is seemingly to facilitate whatever the mental health department says, and perhaps to make you angry to justify it. Even if the mental health service are force medicating people who have not broken the law who are technically not ill. You will not get proper support to legally challenge the mental health serivice the way you are supposed to or how they advertise from mind. They are supposed to be impartial and simply advise you of the law. They can be very rude and uncaring, even when approached with good nature and seem to often vindictively assume people deserve bad treatment rather than helping.
MIND IN CROYDONManagement across the board is deeply incompetent. There is no real leadership, no accountability, and no interest in addressing toxic behaviours. Instead of resolving issues, they perpetuate them by dismissing complaints and ignoring the harmful actions of senior staff. This fosters a demoralising, harmful, and completely unproductive work environment for employees. It is shocking and appalling that an organisation supposedly focused on mental health would tolerate, and even enable, such toxic dynamics within its workplace. The lack of professionalism and leadership is a complete betrayal of the values Mind claims to uphold. If you are considering working at Mind in Croydon, particularly in the Advocacy department, my advice is simple: don’t. This branch fails on every level—from leadership to team cohesion—and will leave you feeling frustrated, stressed, and disheartened. It is a disgrace to the wider mission of Mind and is in desperate need of a complete overhaul. UNFORTUNATELY BOTH MEN ARE BULLIES.
Wouldn't waste your time or get your hopes up. Had an initial conversation and assessment with a support worker and they booked in the next phone appointment that I then never received. Was left feeling very deflated and annoyed. So the service is pointless really. Have learnt once again the hard way to only rely on myself. Have just ring them again to put in a formal complaint to be spoken down to and told "I don't know who you want to make a complaint too" and then fobbed off with an extension number that sent me nowhere. No wonder mental health is as bad as it is in this country when this is the help people get. What a joke.
M.I.N.D. had some pretty good advocates a few years ago. In early 2024, my advocate informed me that their "Commissioning Body", one Ealing Council no longer allowed them to advocate on social issues (clearly related to, and affecting my mental health issues).A few months later I was evicted from my property, all my property, my 17 cameras, 100+ lenses, several computers, all my artistic tools, my professional and private photographs, my clothes and my 55 year collection of designer clothing were stolen and/or destroyed.My past, my present and my future have been destroyed - in no small part by the corruption of this charity! They breached the Charity Commission's rules that stipulated that charities must be independent of state control, and that their aims must not be governed by external bodies.M.I.N.D. should be investigated.
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Mind is a mental health charity in England and Wales.
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