The Rise Awards 2011for excellence in improving the quality of life and well-being of mental health service users receiving support in the community
A. About the Awards
The Rise Awards are presented by Lemos&Crane who are sponsoring a prize of £1,500. Entries are invited from organisations working with mental health service users. In particular those organisations that deliver services in the community; residential care; supported housing; and to people at home.
Entries should be based on work in generating positive outcomes in one or more of the following three areas:

Developing positive personal identity: Examples might include work to enhance personal independence and control; service user involvement, choice and empowerment.
Developing and sustaining relationships. Examples might include work to enhance relationships with family and friends, loving relationships, relationships with pets and connections to communities and other networks or associations.
Promoting positive life satisfaction. Examples might include work to enhance contentment about finances, accommodation, employment, physical health and use of leisure time.

B. Timetable

Deadline for entries – 5pm Friday December 17, 2010
Shortlist announced – January 14, 2011
Winners announced – January 28, 2011.

C. Rules and procedures

Entries must be completed using this entry form and submitted electronically here: HYPERLINK "
Receipt of all entries submitted online will be automatically acknowledged.
Entrants may be asked to provide further information.
The judges' decision is final. Awards will be made at the judges' discretion and no correspondence will be entered into concerning any decision. Not all the awards advertised may be awarded if the judges consider the criteria have not been met. Additional commendations may be made at the judges' discretion.
The content of any entry may be used for informing other practitioners and also for publicity purposes unless the entrant withholds their consent to this in writing.
Entrants are deemed to have accepted these rules and procedures and to have agreed to be bound by them when entering this competition.

D. Your Entry

Please do not exceed 1500 words in total.

Your contact details

Full name / Jon Potter
Organisation / Company Paradiso Arts Charity
Telephone number / 01273 440277
Email address /
Address / 34 Riverbank, Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex
Postcode / BN43 5YH
Website / companyparadiso.co.uk

Name of project you are entering for the Rise Awards

Warning: May Contain Nuts

Describe your project in one sentence

An open project which allowed people who are ‘mentally interesting’ to tell their story and then broadcast these stories on mainstream media

Specify the setting(s) where your project is delivered (eg day centre, residential, drop-in, supported housing, etc)?

3 Day centres, 1 hospital, 1 supported housing project, 1 support group (Hearing Voices), 2 youth projects, one art drop-in centre

What are the project’s objectives?
The project’s central objective was to allow people to tell their stories. We aimed to run groups or activities which gave participants a lead when they needed it and we ran poetry and comedy workshops. Yet throughout we aimed to co-ordinate and provide resources and feedback and not to lead. Our title, for example, was suggested by a writer from the Sunrise Day Centre in Slough. We spent a month or so in discussion with the BBC deciding whether we could use this title and went ahead because of the wide support we had amongst our participants and the confidence of BBC Radio Berkshire in the project. Many of our writers were writing for the first time and exploring the most important things in their lives. Writing was a means of understanding and taking control of their story. We intended the use of humour and comedy to make people feel healthy and positive and to create bonds with other participants and support services.
The project’s secondary objective was to bring untold stories to mainstream media. Through this we aimed to raise awareness of mental health, challenge stigma and gain support and goodwill among the public.
The project’s other aims were to: use creative writing and comedy to unlock and achieve change; to set up innovative partnerships with social service providers and encourage fresh thinking among staff; to bring ‘outsider’ voices onto mainstream media; and to encourage professional artists to share work, create new work and come up with exciting new ideas.

What are the project’s activities?

The project took place two radio regions in 2010. It included 120 writers / performers, 58 workshops and over 200 writer mentoring contacts.
In Berkshire we worked with the Sunrise Day Centre in Slough, Resource Centre in Reading, the Early Intervention Team (16 to 24 year olds) in Slough and Prospect Park Hospital. There were 2 live performance events at Reading Resource and South St Arts Centre, the second featuring workshop participants alongside well-known artists John Hegley and Seaneen Molloy. The Independent gave the event 4 stars and commented: ‘Comedy nights that manage to give the audience food thought and more than enough laughs are rare - but this is one objective which ‘Warning: May Contain Nuts’ certainly achieves.’
We then broadcast material from the project for an hour each day, Monday to Friday on BBC Radio Berkshire, which reaches 150,000 people a week, 19% of the available regional audience. In October 2010 the project won a BBC Gillard Gold Award for the best regional broadcasting in the UK in the Community Category. Judges said they awarded the Gold for: ‘the way they talked about a difficult subject matter with humour. Above all there was a great sense of hope that the battle with mental illness could be fought and won.'
The project also, incredibly, gained a silver award in the Impact Category, for the (second) best single moment of radio in the whole year, across all regional stations’ entire output in the UK.
The material was then shortlisted in the MIND Media Awards for Speech Radio, celebrating nationally the ‘best depictions of mental health in broadcast and new media’. The project was the only entry in the whole evening that focused on comedy. Again, we were able to do this because our project was so clearly led by writers and performers who were speaking for themselves. Material from this project continues to be used by health professionals in Berkshire and many of our participants continue to write and perform.
In Sussex there was very positive partnership working with Creative Response, Bognor, Rowans Day Centre Worthing, George Williams Supported Housing Project, Portslade, the ‘Hearing Voices’ project in East Sussex and with Adur District Council support services for young people. This led up to a week of radio output on BBC Radio Sussex in October 2010 coinciding with World Mental Health Day on October 10th. Our live performance of ‘Warning: may Contain Nuts’ sold out with more than 240 people at the Pavilion Theatre in Brighton. This event stood out across Brighton in the Comedy Festival and was chosen by The Guardian for a feature article. In November 2010 our project book was launched and 250 copies have been distributed through participants and to libraries across the region (please see pdf attached).

What has been the impact of the project (please include any feedback or evaluation)?

Participants have found the project to be empowering. Richard Candy from Berkshire explains: ‘I write really from the exasperation of 25 years of mental suffering. I had tremendous panic attacks until 2006, when I wrote my first story. Writing gives me a sense that, however difficult or bewildering my feelings are, I have a power over them, it gives me a feeling of not being helpless.’ Our mentoring scheme allowed people in secure hospitals to take part. Alfred, in Prospect Park then Heatherwood Hospital, wrote: ‘the last time you called I had to leave the hospital to go into the garden to get reception, and while I was talking to you it was raining hard. I was under a fir tree getting soaked. I didn’t mind – thanks for everything you have done.’ Participants said the project made them feel part of a community. Paul Mclennan wrote: ‘I just wanted to say thank you very much for the invitation to Sunday’s performance. I thought the whole event was fantastic from start to finish. I have never felt so proud to be part of my community and will now only refer to myself as mentally interesting.’ Danny Savage here explains the power of comedy and performance: ‘There’s no drug I’ve been on, prescription or otherwise, that has quite the same effect as being up there, making the audience laugh and cheer’.
The project had an effect on audiences on the radio and in theatres. Dennis Donovan, in the audience at the Pavilion Theatre in Brighton, said: ‘When I heard there would be poetry, my heart sank. But my view was completely changed during the performance. It was one of the most spiritual afternoons I have ever spent. People were talking honestly, clearly, without masks.’ Another audience member, Peter McColloch saw the Guardian article and travelled from Canterbury. He said: ‘I was very moved by it. It was one of the most important experiences of my life. It's what I've been looking for for years and years.’
One impact of the project we did not forsee was the way writers and performers have communicated their stories in ways which people have seen as positive. Phillipa Slinger, Chief Executive of Berkshire Mental Health Trust heard the project on Radio Berkshire and was keen to support it. She commented: ‘I’d like to thank you for focusing on mental health stories in this project because they get so little focus. And I love the fact that it has ben focused on with humour and a certain degree of joy, because generally it isn’t.’
The project worked with a number of professional artists who immersed themselves in the project and will carry on its themes in their own work. John Hegley performed many poems that echoed the project’s themes and said: ‘What I’ve learnt this week is that just because someone has got severe mental unrest does not mean they can’t do good. Look at Vincent Van Gogh. He cut his ear off but the next morning he stood in front of that French field and made it yield up every secret it possessed.’
Project participants have had to cope with the devastating news that one of our writer - comedians, Mackenzie Taylor, took his own life in November. It has reminded everyone of what a devastating illness depression is. But it also reminded us, in the weeks that followed, that there was an extensive and sustaining community around Mackenzie. Ultimately, though, other things became too much and this was not enough.

8.What are your plans for developing the project further?

The project is being taken on by writers and performers who are developing their work. For example there is now a group of writers meeting weekly in Brighton called the Mad Poets Society. Company Paradiso continues to work with the Hearing Voices group in East Sussex and with young people in Adur District.
One participant in the scheme has gone on through our contacts to feature in a BBC South Today news and Radio Sussex series of articles on the use of Section 136 detention in Sussex.
And Jon Potter has had a meeting, along with Phil Gladwin, who has written for Company Paradiso in the past, with BBC Radio Drama Controller Jeremy Howe to talk about a Radio 4 play dealing with mental health. It is very unusual to be asked in this way, and is a tribute to the authenticity and quality of material that we have to share.
Following media coverage we have had approaches to do further performances in Manchester, for the Salford Mental Health Service, and for Hackney MIND. We have also been approached to repeat the project in Glasgow and Scotland for the Scottish Mental Health Forum. Company Paradiso is a small charity who will move on to another subject for next year. We may not have the capacity to develop the work at this time. These opportunities will be taken up either by Company Paradiso or by groups / artists who have been part of the project. And the work this year has been so inspiring that we will return to in in years to come.
We are applying for funding next year to create a clear and lasting website for this project and others as a lasting resource.

E. Submitting your entry
Please return this entry form by 5pm, Friday 17 December 2010 by uploading it on this page: HYPERLINK "
On this page you can also add documents, photos, videos or other media that are relevant to your entry.
If you have problems sending us your entry then please email HYPERLINK "mailto:" for help.
Thank you for entry.

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The Rise Awards 2011 Entry Form