As independent advocates and also
as WFMH Board members, Janet Meagher, Sylvia Caras and Tony Fowke are
particularly concerned with issues put forward by consumers of mental
health services and by carers of those experiencing illness. All were
actively engaged with these matters at the Vancouver Congress, which
was preceded by a separate meeting of the World Network of Users and
Survivors of Psychiatry (WNUSP). Janet Meagher and Tony Fowke, both
Australians, are involved in the planning of the Melbourne Congress.
They are co-chairs of their country s National Consumer/Carer Forum.
Janet Meagher
Janet Meagher, the Federations Honorary
Secretary, has been appointed the first Patron of the
Australian Mental Health Consumers Network
and is on the editorial boards of several mental health
journals.
During 2001 she prepared a new, updated
edition of her book Partnership
or Pretence, which first appeared as a manual for Australian consumer
advocates in 1995 and has sold out in several reprintings
since then.
Sylvia Caras
Sylvia Caras was selected for a second term on the Consumer/Survivor
Subcommittee of the US Center for Mental Health Services National Advisory
Council and became a member of the Mental Health Section of the American
Public Health Association. She was a panelist at a national symposium
on stigma and discrimination, organized by the US Center for Mental
Health Services in Baltimore in March 2001 and attended by 400 people.
(Deputy Secretary General Richard Hunter was also a speaker at this
event.)
Tony Fowke
Tony Fowke, a lawyer, is active in a broad
range of advocacy that encompasses a legal perspective,
concern for the recognition of the
rights of people affected by mental illness, and collaboration
between those with experience of mental illness and carers.
He is involved
with the West Australian Association for Mental Health
on several levels, as a member of the Board of Management,
chair of its education and
health promotion sub-committee and chair of its human rights
and social justice sub-committee. He is also a member
of the carers issues
sub-committee, and in another capacity chairs the Western
Australian Community Advisory
Group. This consists of consumers and carers who monitor
State and Commonwealth Government mental health policy
and programs. Lastly,
at State level, he is a legal member of the Mental Health
Review Board.
