Plate 00Catalogue17 platesFour series
A numbered history of mental health advocacy
Voice Plates sets out the milestones and ideas of mental health advocacy as numbered, sourced plates: asylum reform and its critics, the move to community care, the movements of patients and families, the laws, and the practical steps for speaking up in your own care. The editors write in plain language and name the source for every date.
Plate 01. The long sheet: 34 dated entries, each with its sourceOpen the whole timeline
- 1774England regulates private madhouses
- 1908Clifford Beers publishes A Mind That Found Itself
- 1952Chlorpromazine enters psychiatric practice
- 1962England's Hospital Plan
- 1975O'Connor v. Donaldson
- 1990The Americans with Disabilities Act is signed
- 2006The UN adopts the disability rights convention
- 2008The Parity and Addiction Equity Act
- 2022A three-digit US crisis line deadline arrives
Ideas
What advocacy means, the kinds people name, and how peer support sits beside them.
Plate 02What is mental health advocacy?Speaking up for rights, access and fair treatment, and who does it. Plate 03The five types of advocacyIndividual, systemic, peer, legal and self-advocacy compared. Plate 04What is peer support?Support from people with lived experience, and what the research says.
History
Asylums and their critics, the move to community care, and the movements that grew from patients, families and campaigners.
Plate 05Asylum reform and its criticsFrom moral treatment to the critics of custodial care. Plate 06Deinstitutionalization and community careWhy large hospitals shrank and what followed. Plate 07The consumer/survivor movementPeople who used services organizing for a say in them. Plate 08Family advocacy and carersHow relatives became advocates, and where views differ. Plate 09Stigma and anti-stigma campaignsWhat stigma is and what campaigns have tried.
Law and policy
Parity law, the UN disability rights convention and European policy, each in outline and dated.
Practice
Speaking up for yourself: appointments, records, advocates and talking therapy.
Plate 13Advocating for your own carePlain steps for speaking up in mental health care. Plate 14Preparing for an appointmentWhat to write down and what to ask. Plate 15Asking for your recordsYour right of access, and how to ask. Plate 16How do I request an advocate?Independent advocates and support persons, in outline. Plate 17Supportive therapy and advocacyWhat talking therapy offers and how to ask for it.
How to read the plates
Each plate stands alone and links to its neighbors. The number at the top of a plate says where it sits in the sequence, and the small stepper at the top of the page walks the sequence forward and back. Laws and services differ by country and change over time, so every page is dated and every page names its sources.
The method is set out on the sources and dates page. If something is wrong, tell the editors.